Today, the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore launched its new site that’s intended to help commuters figure out how they can get to Harbor East without a car, or at least show them alternatives. The site, entitled “A Smarter Way to Get There,” has some cool-looking features, though I’m not having great success in using it right yet. Over time, it will probably get easier as they refine it.

Basically, here’s how it works: the site is oriented around a map with 11 icons below it, for the various Maryland Transit Administration lines and the Baltimore’s pending Charm City Circulator. You can click one of the options and see what resources are available around Harbor East. For example, click on the bicycle and it will show you public bike racks around the area. (And fun facts. Did you know that you burn 85 calories in a ten minute bike ride?) But it’s hard to look at other parts of the city where commuters might stop or be coming from. I’m sure that wouldn’t be too hard to fix.

Overall, it’s an interesting idea, because the Harbor East area, with its relatively narrow, two-way streets, is not going to wind up being a place where everybody can drive their own car to work. As Robbie Whelan and I wrote last year, many of the intersections in that area are projected to become inadequate if the growth continues apace. Using the existing public transportation could be helpful, but everyone seems to acknowledge that it’s going to be hard to accommodate growth down there without the Red Line, an east-west light rail link that’s years away.

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You’d think the Internet pranksters would have had their fill by now of Mayor Sheila Dixon’s admonishment, but I guess if you get a rise out of someone once…

Last week, somebody  launched a Twitter site for FakeSheilaDixon. As the name indicates, this is not an attempt to fool anybody, especially after the Manchester, England confusion of a few weeks ago. Then,  a trickster set up a doppelganger city Web site, and made it appear as though Dixon was spouting off about negative comments made by a Tory politician.

The fake site duped publications including The Guardian and The Baltimore Sun, and drew a quick clarification from Dixon’s office.

FakeSheilaDixon is taking a lighthearted approach, and has been tweeting up a storm . Whoever it is appears to be paying attention to Dixon’s schedule, though. This one came out Monday just before the mayor announced that an event to honor garbage men had been postponed:

“I took the day off today,” FakeSheilaDixon said. “Let’s just say I enjoyed the Mayor’s Box at the Ravens game a little too much.”

Was the mayor at the game? I didn’t see it on her schedule.

I must admit that this is not my favorite fake Baltimore twitter account. That honor stays with unpeterangelos, the famed impersonator of Orioles owner and prominent attorney Peter Angelos. He (or maybe Twitter) had his own problems with the real Peter Angelos.

But apparently the fakers are enjoying the company. Unpeterangelos had this to say in response to Ms. Fake Dixon.

“I admire your administrative style. You’re a civic treasure, madame. PS: Now, about that zoning permit…”

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People got really excited to see The Magnificent Steve Jobs reappear at an Apple announcement yesterday, and there were some cool new products.

However, it might be wise to wait a few days and/or check with your IT department before you install the iPhone firmware update, especially if you need your phone for work. The Consumerist blog reports some iPhone 3G are having problems with the new setup in the way it connects to Exchange servers. Click through for details on why people think it’s happening.

It seems likely that Apple will fix this soon, but in the meantime the version 3.0 firmware is working just fine for me. Of course, there’s always the temptation.

As The Consumerist writes:

“If you’re a gadgetophile like me, you love firmware updates because it’s like giving your smartphone, camera, or other mp3 player a mini-makeover. If you’re normal, however, don’t rush into it—the best thing to do is wait a bit and see what problems are reported from the front line.”

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JetBlue is trying to make a splash today as they open their first route from BWI airport, going to Boston. I wrote this week about how the Baltimore to Boston flight demonstrates the growing budget carrier competition at BWI, but it is getting silly at this point.

Today, JetBlue has a limited sale that starts at $9 to and from Beantown, which is lower than anything I can remember.  I haven’t seen a return volley from Southwest or AirTran today, but each has run specials to Boston this year. Southwest started flying there this summer.

Now, the JetBlue sale has its limits. It’s over after today, and only available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between Sept. 16 and Oct. 18. But still, they’re all starting around $39.

So who wins this battle for Boston traffic? Maybe there’s enough of a market here, if the transplanted New Englanders who crowd Camden Yards are any indication. I grew up near Boston myself, and have benefited from all the competition over the past year to fly me home.

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it intercepted a Chinese shipment that contained Asian Longhorned Beetles bound for Baltimore. If you don’t know what these are, pray you don’t find out. These bad boys are seen as a pretty big threat to trees everywhere, and they’re not supposed to be here.

Typically, they get into the States in wooden packing materials, so that’s why the authorities were on the lookout. I can’t find any documentation that these things have actually shown their horrific faces in Maryland yet, but the Nature Conservancy says we’re ripe for the picking. And you thought the gypsy moths were bad…

So far, the worst infestations since the mid-1990s have been in Chicago and New York. There was one in Massachusetts too. The only way to get rid of these ugly fellas is to destroy the trees they’re living in. Apparently, CBP caught another beetle-infested shipment from China in 2005.

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Good stuff at the Maryland Association of Counties conference this morning. After a few days at the retreat, state and local leaders have let their guards down substantially, and have begun to joke around.

There were some good jokes between Del. Murray Levy, a Charles County Democrat, and economist Anirban Basu at a morning forum on the state’s economic outlook. I won’t repeat them here, but let’s just say they involved some serious double entendres having to do with the huge size of the federal stimulus package.

For U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat, a panel discussion on economic development could have been a respite from the harsh crowds he faced in his travels around Maryland to discuss the health care reform package now before congress.

He brought it up, though.”I almost didn’t find the [panel] because I was looking for protesters and didn’t know what to expect” he said.

Cardin also razzed Department of Business and Economic Development Secretary Christian Johansson about his experiences in western Maryland, pointing out that his widely-covered health care forums in Frederick and Hagerstown provided those cities with more broad publicity than they’ve gotten from state promotional efforts in awhile.

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The Maryland Association of Counties summer conference is a little bit subdued, as I thought it might be. However, the exhibit halls are still full and the conference rooms appear well-attended.

One of the interesting things I always check out is what the exhibitors are giving out to visitors. Garrett County, for instance, is handing out little jugs of maple syrup. Another reporter showed me one of their pickups: a green plastic picture frame from the Department of Business and Economic Development. It was displaying a head shot of Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Baltimore City had nothing but brochures when I stopped by, a move that Mayor Sheila Dixon said was helping the city keep its conference costs lean. Her office has four people here this year, down from 10 last year, she said.

Stay tuned for more on how visitors to the summer political tradition are responding to economic pressure.

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I’m off to the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City, where I’ll be checking in over the next few days with state and local policy people. It should be an interesting year, given all of the budget troubles that have beset governments everywhere.

You may not be able to tell from the schedule, but the four-day conference is usually a pretty celebratory affair. You get to see some of the state’s most influential figures in Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts. People generally bring their families, and take the opportunity to kick back between sessions on wastewater management and health care for seniors. It may be a little subdued this year, but there’s still a pretty packed reception schedule, with a big exception.

Gov. Martin O’Malley has already canceled his annual reception at Seacrets, and instructed administration officials to hold back on expenses at the conference. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a somewhat lower turnout this year as leaders try to save money.

Still, county officials have a lot to talk about, and plenty to worry about. O’Malley is expecting to bring $470 million in cuts to the Board of Public Works later this month, and a good portion of those are likely to hit local governments. The question remains, what’s getting cut?

The next few days should be a good opportunity to find out some details, thoughts, hopes and fears. Some good stories always come out of the event, so I’ll keep you posted.

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Chrysler is not taking criticism lightly as Congress debates a bill that could require the automaker to resume ties with dealerships that it got court approval to cut last month. Though the dealership agreements have already been yanked, Congress is looking to see if they can’t be restored.

Bethesda’s Jack Fitzgerald has been one of the more visible advocates for the legislation.  He lost his five Chrysler Dealership agreements, and is slated to lose two General Motors shingles as well.

“The people who are making these decisions are the same ones who ran them into bankruptcy,” he told me in June.

But those people have arguments of their own. Addressing criticism of the closure process on a blog that for some reason is only accessible to recognized members of the media (don’t worry, I’ve got you covered), Peter Grady, a Chrysler VP, said the decisions were well-thought-out and fair.

He says the numbers make the case:

- The 789 rejected dealers achieved on average only 73 percent of their contractual minimum sales responsibility. This resulted in 55,000 missed vehicle sales and $1.5 billion in lost revenue to Chrysler. This represents lost economic value to the local communities and states, as well.

- It represents $33 million in annual costs to the company to maintain the 789 discontinued dealers for everything from personnel to support ordering, auditing, processing of payments, and other myriad of administrative services.

- It costs the company $150 million annually for marketing and advertising for the 789 dealers—that’s above and beyond dealer contributions.

- It would cost $1.4 billion over four years to develop and engineer overlapping “sister” vehicles, if a significant minority or a majority of our dealer network did not sell all three brands under one roof. 

On the other side, dealers have argued that they don’t cost the company nearly that much, and that companies are cutting their dealer bases to be more like leaner, Japanese automakers.

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Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation Secretary Tom Perez is making progress in his path to become part of President Barack Obama’s administration, according to the Blog of the Legal Times. Perez, the nominee to handle civil rights as an assistant attorney general, has been in a holding pattern for two weeks since he cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee by a broad margin.

Senate Republicans have sought to address their concerns about his past political activity, including a stint on the board of directors of the immigrant advocacy group Casa de Maryland. Apparently, some of those concerns have been resolved through a few closed door meetings this week.

Other fun tidbits from the blogs:

An imbroglio has broken out over a plan to tax more online sales in North Carolina, with several Amazon-linked company affiliates (sites that refer sales to the internet retail behemoth) potentially losing their company links. The state wants to use those relationships to tax Amazon’s sales. Now, states can only tax companies that are located there or have major brick-and-mortar operations.

This idea came up during the end of the General Assembly session this year, but died quietly. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it come up again, but this doesn’t look good.

On that note, you probably missed what appears to be one of the most absurd online sales of all time.

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