In letter she handed to Trump, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh urges Broadband investment

Newly sworn-in Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh took the opportunity of a handshake in the bowels of M&T Bank Stadium during Donald Trump’s appearance at last weekend’s Army-Navy game to hand-deliver a letter.

With @realDonaldTrump in Baltimore I delivered a letter noting importance of our infrastructure needs & need for investment of federal funds pic.twitter.com/61OsajKvtQ

— Mayor Catherine Pugh (@MayorPugh50) December 10, 2016

It’s not a bid to become pen pals with the President Elect. Pugh is looking to get Trump’s attention politically, writing that the city is the “perfect place” to provide the big-dollar infrastructure spending that Trump said he will propose once he takes office.
“Baltimore is leading the way in transforming urban blight into vibrant neighborhoods, innovation districts and job hubs, but we can not do it alone,” she wrote.
Read the letter
One of the areas where she encouraged spending is Broadband.
Referencing the Smarter Baltimore report completed during Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s term, she said the city schools system will be applying for $8 million in funding from the federal government’s E-rate program that could help install fiber internet in public schools.
“The plan will strategically use the E-rate program to both enhance the City’s educational capabilities, while also leveraging private and City funds, to lay additional fiber to spur economic development, job creation and more robust internet access,” she writes. “A cost-effective fiber network will lead to competition, lower Broadband costs and more connectivity for Baltimore residents and businesses.”
She said the city also wants to apply for grants from federal departments like the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.
The letter lays out additional infrastructure priorities for the city, including improvements to roads in Port Covington, an expansion of the Howard Street rail tunnel so it would fit double-stacked train cars and repairs to the city’s water system.
“I know Baltimore’s best days are before us and I am certain you and your Administration will work hard to ensure Baltimore City has a great future,” she writes.
Pugh appeared to be seizing on Trump’s plan to bring “urban renewal” to “inner cities.” A little more than a week before Election Day, Trump issued a plan that said cities would be a “major beneficiary” of a $1 trillion infrastructure investment plan. Specific details, however, have yet to be released. The plan will also have to pass Congress.

For too many years, our inner cities have been left behind. I am going to deliver jobs, safety and protection for those in need.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016

With Pugh’s administration also just beginning, the letter leaves observers such as this reporter considering how all the talk about Broadband is connected to its importance for her administration. Pugh pointed out in Technical.ly’s mayoral candidate questionnaire this year that she supported legislation to expand broadband in the state while in the state senate. She’s weighed in on wireless spectrum, and argued against a fully muncipal-run broadband network in 2013.
She takes office after a year in which City Hall paid some attention to broadband. The grassroots Baltimore Broadband Coalition has been working to raise the issue of internet access. Rawlings-Blake also appointed a Broadband coordinator in the final year of her administration, and city leaders laid out potential Broadband options at a City Council hearing last year.