For decades, select neighborhoods across Baltimore have paid into special benefit districts, paying a premium on top of their taxes to groups that pick up trash, plant trees and support local businesses.

It’s a service that’s grown in popularity. Additional neighborhoods have opted into the districts — most recently the businesses along York Road joined — and their renewals every four years are generally a matter of course.

Until now.

The Midtown Community Benefits District, one of the city’s oldest, is staring down a crossroads. A bill introduced last year to speedily renew the district became mired in the City Council, received no hearing and ultimately died at the end of the session.

Now, officials must recreate the district from scratch, a process that involves a vote of the more than 4,000 property owners spread across the four neighborhoods that make up the sprawling 20,000-resident district: Mount Vernon, Bolton Hill, Charles North and Madison Park.

While city leaders have been moving mountains to keep the district intact — the issue sailed through three approvals in the course of a week — the outcome of the vote is anything but guaranteed. A contingent of Midtown residents and business owners who pay the special tax, a 13-cent levy on every $100 of assessed property value, have spoken out in light of the district’s peril.

In their eyes, the district has been failing at its core mission — keeping Midtown clean, green and safe.

George Bourozikas, a Mount Vernon resident, said it will be a game-time decision whether he ultimately casts his vote to keep the district.

“Their job is very simple,” he said. “It’s the basics.”

When Bourozikas and his wife moved into a stately Victorian on Park Avenue 13 years ago, they quickly got to know the employees of the benefits district, specifically a woman who was assigned to clean up trash on their street. She was conscientious and proactive, Bourozikas said, reporting dumped trash to city officials without residents having to make a request.

Several years ago, however, the benefits district chose to outsource its trash collectors, Bourozikas said. The new employees are less visible, and when they are spotted, they’re sometimes huddled together, seemingly waiting for the day to pass, he said.

“The people who were committed to their work were fired overnight. They were part of the community,” he said. “[The district] is pretending they’re doing workforce development. It gives workforce development a bad name.”

Eric Souza, president of the benefits district since 2022, said the group’s board made the call to contract for trash collection before he was hired. The district uses an industry leader for the work, and the “vast majority” of the company’s hires are Baltimoreans, he said. Most of the existing employees were “migrated” to the new vendor, Souza said.

Souza has vigorously defended the benefits district, touting the dozens of trash cans the group routinely empties as well as alley cleaning and bulk trash removal services his group undertakes.

Through grants from the Chesapeake Bay Trust and others, the benefits district has been able to plant hundreds of trees annually and offers landscaping, Souza said.

Leaders acknowledged, however, that the group’s focus has shifted a bit in the last few years. Councilman Zac Blanchard, who now represents much of Midtown but worked for the district prior to taking office, said the group’s work expanded around 2019 to include economic development efforts.

Residents including Bourozikas think that’s premature until quality-of-life issues like trash are under control.

“That’s great once you deal with the basics,” he said.

Souza said the benefits district began soliciting community input shortly before the controversy over the district’s renewal began. That effort was paused amid the controversy. The complaints raised by residents during the renewal discussions are ones leaders have not heard before, he said, but district leaders are committed to soliciting feedback if voters choose to keep the district, he said.

“All of the projects we have participated in are in the vein of clean, green and safe,” he said. “These were all community-driven projects.”

A dropped ball

The intense debate over the Midtown Community Benefits District almost didn’t happen. A bill that would have renewed the district without a vote from residents fell through the cracks just after the ouster of Councilman Eric Costello, whose district included Midtown. Costello was upset in the May primary by Blanchard, then an employee of the benefits district.

Last spring, Costello introduced legislation to renew the Midtown district along with two other bills to continue the Port Covington Community Benefits District and the South Baltimore Gateway Partnership. All are zones within the South Baltimore district he represented.

Hearings were held for the other two bills by the Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Costello, and renewals were ultimately approved. Meanwhile, the Midtown bill was assigned to the Community and Economic Development Committee, chaired by Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton. It never received a hearing.

Middleton, who voted in favor of legislation enabling the district’s renewal last month, said there was no particular reason she did not call a hearing on the bill last year, but she recalled there “wasn’t much conversation” about the legislation at the time.

Middleton said the current process “gets more people involved.”

“Once you make those moves, it’s a permanent ordinance,” she said.

Costello did not respond to a request for comment.

The council voted unanimously last month in favor of two bills needed to send the benefits district to voters. The mayor has since signed the legislation.

“I do not understand why the previous City Council did not vote on this issue, but our council will get it done,” said Council President Zeke Cohen when asked why the issue languished last session.

The voters decide

The benefits district’s fate now rests in the hands of the district’s property owners. Ballots were mailed to each this month and voters will have 21 days to mark and cast them. Comptroller Bill Henry’s office will be responsible for tallying the results. (The council made an amendment to avoid a requirement for the city Board of Elections to be involved.) As required by city code, at least 58% of votes cast must be in favor to reestablish the district. Votes will be counted on April 2.

That could be a tricky prospect, depending who votes, said Curt Decker, a resident of the district. Decker, who has lived in his Read Street brownstone for 50 years, decades before the district was created in 1996, has mixed feelings about the group’s performance.

Patrons of the district’s commercial offerings leave a lot of trash behind, Decker said. So do tenants, particularly those who live in buildings owned by out-of-town or less-than-diligent landlords, he said. If those property owners who are less invested in the community think of their wallets when casting ballots, the district could be in trouble, Decker said.

For Decker’s part, he said, he’s “happy to pay” the additional tax, but the benefits district needs to be focused on quality-of-life issues like trash rather than other pursuits, he said. Decker has lobbied the council to attach restrictions to the renewed district, demanding more focus on cleaning and greening.

Councilman James Torrence, who represents a small portion of Midtown, pledged during a recent council meeting to build some of those concerns into a legally binding memo that will be drafted if the district is reapproved.

“I’m certainly not annoyed enough to vote no,” Decker said, calling the backlash from residents a shot across the bow. “We have it. Lets keep it, but let’s make it really work.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that some workers were retained when the Midtown Benefits District outsourced its trash collection.

Baltimore Banner reporter Lee O. Sanderlin contributed to this report.