Many contractors are just one step above criminals. You should report this guy to MHIC and try to get some money back. There is a guarantee fund that might be able to reimburse you. Make sure you retain all documentation.

The 70 year old one is most likely old growth lumber and therefore much stronger than the new one. So no.

It is unknown how they arrived as least according to the news reports, but at least some of them have city addresses. Voting against more connections with the city is what the response will be.

The recent horrific Towson crime wave is not going to make the area more amenable to public transit.

No I don't think I will. I don't care about impressing people on the internet.

I am in the industry. You overpaid.

That is way, way too much.

People flipping houses are not installing 40k kitchens. That's either high end custom work or clueless retail clients overpaying.

60k for a rehab that involves a kitchen, 2 bathrooms floors, electrical, new HVAC and ducting and all the usual plumbing etc but nothing structural. Rehabs where you have a brick shell and need to frame are 120k+ easily. Underpinning adds another 20k+ to the budget. The fire may have been contained to a particular area of the house or they may have received nonprofit funding. These are all trade prices and assuming you have the connections to not get ripped off by a retail GC.

Some tax credits are refundable so an individual can receive more from the income tax system than they put in. This is one of those cases from a quick reading of the article.

Just because you say something does not make it true.

There are areas in the US that have very high rates of gun ownership and yet low crime. How do you account for those?

Ahh so it's a culture problem then?

Do we know the race of the alleged perp?

Taipei and Tokyo are extremely dense and have some of the lowest crime rates in the entire world.

I am looking at the record and there is no conviction. The result is " DISMISSED: PETITIONER FAILED TO APPEAR" if I have the right person. Accusations of criminal activity are considered defamation per se which means /u/frenemies would have to prove that what he says is true were he to be sued.

That's a serious accusation. Do you have any evidence to back it up that would convince a reasonable individual?

Pay raises and new hires were made without proper review.

In 2017, $85,000 of salary adjustments were made by six employees who were permitted to do so without any independent review. One of them “processed approximately 8,500 of these adjustments totaling $14.7 million,” the auditors said, pointing out that “similar conditions were noted in our two preceding audit reports.”

• Poor control of overtime.

In a test of overtime payments for 23 employees, none had been approved in advance as required by policy. During 2016 “these 23 employees individually were paid overtime ranging from $2,821 to $51,849, with total collective overtime payments of $392,813.”

• Overpayments of overtime.

Although identified as a problem in a prior audit, city schools had still not corrected the overtime rate paid to employees in a certain union. The result: excess payments totaling $208,000 in 2015 and 2016.

This is from the link provided. Would you like to update your position given the facts? Keep in mind this was only a test sample where the irregularities were found. The true extent of the problem could be widespread.

It's something that people in this sub don't want to hear, but yes.

Reddit has this blind spot when it comes to unions. They hate the police union and take great umbrage at the overtime fraud and various other games that they play but refuse to believe that other public service unions are doing similar things. This is despite Baltimore city schools failing multiple audits. It's a very strange cognitive bias.

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/money-school-performance-lessons-kansas-city-desegregation-experiment

They tried throwing a massive amount of resources at a similar school system under order of a court and produced almost no positive results. Kansas city had the highest per capita funding of education and the most opulent facilities probably of any public school system in US history. It's an interesting experiment and anyone discussing school funding should be aware of it.

>Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country. The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.

Baltimore city public schools have an enormous amount of funding shoveled into the fire, but it's never enough. The administration and the unions will always demand more no matter how abysmal the results they produce are.