Dear Mr. Palmer,

The hearing that you referred to in your letter was scheduled before I knew anything about World Aids Day. We as Council members have always supported causes and events for people with HIV\AIDS. We have walked in many events sponsored by HERO, which helped to raise money for the program. We have supported Moveable Feast and other organizations that provide services to those with HIV\AIDS. I don't understand why you would chastise us for not making this event. We all have a family member or friend that is affected by HIV\AIDS. I would hope that you would understand that we didn't intentionally mean to not attend your event.

Councilman Bernard Young

Dear Councilman Young,
Thank you for your response.  We certainly appreciate the support you have given to organizations supporting HIV/AIDS in the past.  It remains, however, a crisis in our city that is overlooked too often, by too many.  It is not our intention to chastise anyone who is personally affected, but to ask for renewed attention and commitment from everyone.

December 1^st has been designated as World AIDS Day for over two decades. While there are certainly other standing annual dates that are of importance on our calendars, we believe that 22 years is certainly a sufficient amount of time for it to have become a permanent part of the City Council’s calendar, especially in a city as heavily impacted by HIV/AIDS as Baltimore.

For your reference, we are sending you a list of the national and worldwide 2010 HIV/AIDS Information and Awareness Days to help ensure that they can be placed on the Council’s calendar.

The citywide World AIDS Day events were not about any one organization; they were about bringing our city together to remember those friends, family, loved ones and leaders we have lost to HIV/AIDS, to offer healing as a community and to recommit to a future free from HIV/AIDS. While community leaders and representatives from so many groups were present, our city’s ELECTED leaders were unfortunately and conspicuously absent.

In light of the State of Emergency in our city, and the impact that, as you point out, the pandemic has had on the lives of each of the Council members, we believe it reasonable to expect that our city’s elected officials participate in events to commemorate World AIDS Day EACH and EVERY year, so long as people continue to be infected and die. It is all the more reasonable to expect participation in a citywide event in which so many community and city agencies participated.

We look forward to your support for the meeting and hearing proposed by Councilwoman Clarke, and your commitment to working together with the community and the Council to ensure that that the pandemic that touches so many of our lives on a daily basis is a priority at the top of our city’s agenda.

Respectfully,

Kevin Clemons
Bill Palmer
John Redmond
Greg Satorie
Carlton Smith

Dear Messrs. Clemons, Palmer, Redmond, Satorie and Smith,

Thank you for your email, and please accept my personal apologies for missing the Citywide World AIDS Day events of December 1.

Your follow-up is taken to heart and, furthermore, serves as a call to focus attention on the “State of Emergency” whereby our residents in 2009 account for 50% of Maryland’s HIV/AIDS cases.

By copy, I am asking President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Councilman Bernard Young, chair of the Public Safety and Health Committee, if they would please schedule a Committee meeting and hearing in early 2010 with representatives of the 70 organizations involved with World AIDS Day, to update us all on status and next steps. Such a coming-together would certainly serve as a good New Year’s Resolution for our informed involvement in future efforts and events to address this issue.

We DO care. I thank you for reminding us of how to show it.

Thank you,

Mary Pat Clarke

Dear Councilwoman Clarke,

Thank you for your gracious and thoughtful response. 

We certainly look forward to the proposed meeting and hearing, and will do all we can to work with you, the Council and the community to ensure that that the pandemic that touches so many of our lives on a daily basis is a priority at the top of our city’s agenda.

Respectfully,

Kevin Clemons
Bill Palmer
John Redmond
Greg Satorie
Carlton Smith