Before I get too far along, I want to congratulate Mayor Dixon on her remarkable ability to fill the big shoes Governor O’Malley left in the Mayor’s office earlier this year:
You are continuing the hard work and often thankless work of a public servant.
And, after four years of territorial wrestling, Governor O’Malley and I are both looking forward to a continued renewal of this partnership between the State House and City Hall in the months and years to come.
When we took office in January, Governor O’Malley and I saw a bright future for Marylanders:
We saw a growing middle class,
One of the Nation’s best-educated workforces,
And a quality of life that would attract the best and the brightest from states and nations near and far.
We also saw great opportunities to make that future a reality.
Not the least of which are the opportunities coming to Maryland and to Baltimore because of BRAC.
BRAC will create 60,000 jobs in Maryland—as many as 3,100—right here in this city. And it will bring as many as 28,000 new families to our state—2,500 to Baltimore.
We understand what we need to do:
We need to develop adequate infrastructure;
Provide suitable and responsive workforce training and workforce creation;
And we need to identify new and existing business opportunities to sustain the coming growth.
We’ll be ready. We will have the workforce to fill these new jobs, and the infrastructure—the schools, the parks, the libraries, the roads—to welcome our new neighbors. And in many ways, we are ready:
60 accredited colleges and universities — 5 that are NSA-designated Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education;
A network of community colleges that have taken on a renewed challenge to train new members of the workforce and enhance the skills of those who are already employed;
And in Baltimore, you have the available residential infrastructure and the rejuvenated cultural assets —the Inner Harbor, the Hippodrome, Patterson Park, Camden Yards— to welcome new and future Baltimoreans to this great city.
Maryland is ready. We’re already building the infrastructure to succeed.
Here in Baltimore, MDOT will soon begin improvements on the Russell Street gateway.
We’ve already started improvements on 295 to increase capacity for those traveling to Fort Meade.
And earlier this year, we invested $400 million in school construction, $52.7 million of which is coming to Baltimore.
Mayor Dixon, thank you for your leadership and I’m proud to accept your BRACtion Plan for Baltimore City.
And in a few minutes, I’ll be joining Deputy Mayor Andy Frank on a Live Baltimore bus tour of the City to see some of those plans.
Governor O’Malley, Mayor Dixon, officials from all of the BRAC 8, and I all understand what’s coming:
60,000 jobs
28,000 families.
We understand and we are ready.
Thank you.