Have you noticed ads on social media in support of Question F, the extremely litigated ballot initiative asking Baltimore voters to change the city charter so a private company can demolish the Harborplace pavilions and replace them with big, mixed-use high-rises? Maybe you’ve even seen the ads on this very website?

Well, it should not come as a shock that MCB Real Estate, the company seeking to redevelop Harborplace, is connected to the advertisements. In a document filed Friday, the group sponsoring the ads, Baltimore for a New Harborplace, reported receiving no donations while owing more than $100,000 to political strategy firms for “field expenses” and “media.”

It is unclear how Baltimore for a New Harborplace will pay for the expenses and the group’s campaign finance report provides no answers — but it does have a few clues.

Baltimore for a New Harborplace has listed two treasurers since August: Leland Shelton and Jonathan Sandoval, both MCB employees. Shelton, the director of government relations for MCB, was Mayor Brandon Scott’s campaign treasurer in 2020 and is registered with the city to lobby for MCB. Sandoval is MCB’s development director.

“All contributors will be identified as required in the next report, including MCB which will be contributing to the committee,” Jon Laria, a real estate attorney and committee chair, wrote in an email. “That report will be available to the public prior to the November 5 election.” Campaign finance reports are next due Oct. 25.

The committee has put forward ads on social media highlighting how the proposed development — current plans call for five new buildings, including two towers with up to 900 residential units and a reduction in car lanes around the harbor — would make for a “greener” Inner Harbor. Promising to connect residents “to the water like never before,” the committee’s website says the plan includes $200 million in “climate change resiliency investments” along the promenade and planting 500 trees in the area.

“Baltimore has always been a city that [is] powered by its harbor,” the committee’s website reads. “A greener, more sustainable Inner Harbor will only draw us closer — not only to the water, but each other!”

Appearing with increased frequency over the last several weeks, the advertising campaign came during a legal challenge to the ballot question. Attorney Thiru Vignarajah and a small group of city residents tried to have the charter amendment blocked from the ballot on the grounds the question posed to voters was difficult to understand and that it violated the Maryland Constitution. A circuit court judge sided with Vignarajah but Maryland’s Supreme Court overturned that decision, effectively ending the opposition campaign.

Despite the legal questions raised, Vignarajah’s challenge was also a last-ditch effort to preserve the Inner Harbor, arguing in public forums that city leaders should not cede public park space to well-connected private developers.

West Baltimore native P. David Bramble leads MCB Real Estate and has significant city and state backing — Baltimore for a New Harborplace’s website features quotes from Gov. Wes Moore and Scott urging voters to approve the amendment. Bramble and other MCB employees have also donated to both men’s campaigns.

Campaigns for and against ballot measures in Baltimore are largely inconsequential, given that all but one has passed since 1999. This year could be different. Vignarajah has said he and his supporters will try to urge people to vote against Question F. And another ballot initiative, Question H, has become its own political battleground.

The measure, which would reduce the number of City Council seats to eight from 14, is the subject of a broad coalition of elected officials and labor leaders who see it as an attempt by a wealthy Republican outsider to remake the city to his liking. David Smith, a Baltimore County resident who owns The Baltimore Sun and is the executive chairman of Sinclair, Inc., has personally funded Question H’s campaign. Led by Scott, an opposing campaign called “Stop Sinclair,” has over $150,000 to spend in its effort to defeat Smith’s measure.