The County Council Needs a Gamer, Not More Consultants
The Baltimore County Council handles a massive $4.8 billion budget. These suits waste your tax dollars on high-priced consultants who couldn’t find a pothole on Joppa Road. My Cities: Skylines 2 Bootcamp seminar fixes this. Kathy Klausmeier and the Towson crew don’t need more expensive consultant reports. They need a gaming PC and a copy of Cities: Skylines 2.
Professional planners in Stockholm already use this software. They simulated the Norra Djurgårdsstaden district to house 35,000 workers before they broke ground. Our elected officials just take a wild guess and hope the lights stay on and sewer lines don’t overflow. They approve massive projects while the Department of Public Works (DPW) begs for a $562 million capital budget just to stay afloat.
It’s time to end the ribbon-cutting circus. We need Golden Wrench ceremonies for every rusted bridge they actually fix! Politicians love the cameras when a new building opens in White Marsh. They disappear when the Warren Road bridge rots into the water. A Golden Wrench ceremony forces these politicians to stand in the mud and take credit for the invisible work that keeps this county running.
Our sewer system is at a breaking point. A 1976 Interjurisdictional Agreement limits how much waste we can pump–and we’re hitting the ceiling. The Council keeps signing off on new developments so their donor buddies can make a profit while the pipes back up. A video game simulation shows you that a new suburb is a death sentence if you don’t upgrade the main lines first. Whether it’s Cities: Skylines 2 or Sim City 4 (which despite its age many believe to be superior to the newest version), it would be worth trying.
Baltimore County Council Bill 3-26 had to stop a datacenter surge because the power grid is a joke. But they are playing a high-stakes game with our infrastructure and they’re losing. Above and below ground. It’s well past time for Baltimore to stop guessing about our future.
