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Why State Center Revamp Is In Jeopardy

State Center in Baltimore.
spike55151 via flickr
State Center in Baltimore.
State Center in Baltimore.
Credit spike55151 via flickr
State Center in Baltimore.

The State Center complex in Baltimore is one of the remaining items that Governor Martin O'Malley may push for in his last month in office. WYPR's Fraser Smith and Christopher Connelly talk about the origin of the project and why its future is in jeopardy.

Editor's note: The reporter misspoke in this interview, which has been amended. Department of Legislative Services Director Warren Deschenaux’s letter noted the possibility that the State Center project could breach the state’s capital debt limit. Deschenaux, in his letter, did not say that exceeding that cap could present complications to other projects. However, senators at a meeting of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee did raise the specter that other projects could be at risk if the state exceeds its self-imposed debt limit, including school construction funding from the state. But breaching the capital debt limit would not put at risk the $1 billion Baltimore City school renovation plan approved in 2013 because that project uses the Maryland Stadium Authority acts as the financing agent, and so does not count against the state’s capital debt limit. We regret this error.

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Fraser Smith has been in the news business for over 30 years. He began his reportorial career with the Jersey Journal, a daily New Jersey newspaper and then moved on to the Providence Journal in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1969 Fraser won a prestigious American Political Science Association Public Affairs Fellowship, which enabled him to devote a year to graduate study at Yale University. In 1977, Fraser was hired away by The Baltimore Sun where in 1981, he moved to the newspaper's Washington bureau to focus on policy problems and their everyday effect on Marylanders. In 1983, he became the Sun's chief political reporter.
Christopher Connelly is a political reporter for WYPR, covering the day-to-day movement and machinations in Annapolis. He comes to WYPR from NPR, where he was a Joan B. Kroc Fellow, produced for weekend All Things Considered and worked as a rundown editor for All Things Considered. Chris has a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. He’s reported for KALW (San Francisco), KUSP (Santa Cruz, Calif.) and KJZZ (Phoenix), and worked at StoryCorps in Brooklyn, N.Y. He’s filed stories on a range of topics, from a shortage of dog blood in canine blood banks to heroin addicts in Tanzania. He got his start in public radio at WYSO in Yellow Springs, Ohio, when he was a student at Antioch College.