Glenn L. Ross has been a community activist in East Baltimore for nearly 25 years. From the time he bought and rehabbed a decaying, vacant house at 509 N. Milton Avenue, Glenn has focused his energy cleaning up problems in McElderry Park and surrounding communities. View his accomplishments.
Glenn began his long activist journey by addressing a mundane but important problem that affects many Baltimore neighborhoods: RATS. He developed a program to rid his neighborhood of rat infestation, and was so successful that Mayor Schaefer awarded Glenn the “Baltimore’s Best” award in 1985 for his Rat Rub-Out and Sanitation program.
From there, Glenn has gone on to develop and organize a wide variety of community development projects, never losing his passion for helping the people in his community. As president of the McElderry Park Neighborhood Association, Glenn coordinated working relationships with over 140 community organizations, local businesses, religious organizations, and family support agencies. Glenn served as General Manager of the Community Resource Bank of Maryland from 1987-1990. He was also a Coordinator for the Mayor’s Campaign for a Cleaner Baltimore, which greatly expanded recycling in Baltimore City. In September 2001, Glenn was named “Baltimore’s Best Community Activist” by the City Paper. Most recently, Glenn helped to start the Southeast Stakeholders Coalition, which aims to keep Southeast Baltimore residents and community leaders informed about current issues that affect them, including the BioTech redevelopment project.
Some of Glenn’s proudest achievements center on the link between the environment, public health, community empowerment and economic development. East Baltimore is littered with abandoned industrial sites that are contaminated with toxic chemicals and waste. These sites are called Brownfields. By utilizing EPA Superfund money, Glenn has worked with Civic works to develop and participate in environmental training programs for community residents (The B-More Green Project). These programs have trained and certified residents to perform environmental testing and cleaning of hazardous Brownfields sites. Now, these residents, some without even a high school diploma, can obtain jobs performing hazardous waste clean-up of the Brownfields sites. Glenn was able to link Ecology and Environmental Awareness with Community and Economic Development. Glenn demonstrates that by applying Green Party principles to community development, you can produce very positive changes.
In addition, Glenn has implemented customized community development and leadership training programs for McElderry Park residents, such as family life learning skills, conflict resolution, personality assessment, crime prevention and strategy techniques, and leadership skills. This has created over three dozen block captains and leaders in McElderry Park. These program have trained residents in how to run effective community organizations and utilize the democratic institutions available to everyone, so that more residents can lobby and advocate on behalf of their community. Leadership and vision of the sort that Glenn Ross has exhibited over the years is precisely what is needed to promote and produce a healthy and productive society.
In his campaign for the 13th City Council district seat, Glenn will emphasize issues surrounding transitional communities, urban blight, environmental racism, quality of life, and effective, pro-community development. In joining the Green Party, Glenn has unambiguously rejected politics as usual. Glenn wants to “change the game” in the new 13th Council district, and knows that this cannot be accomplished with large corporate donations- and all the strings that are inevitably attached. Rather, we need to reinvent the current political system because it is plagued with divisiveness, secrecy, back-door dealing and top-down control. Glenn understands that the people’s strength lies in their sense of community, and hopes that his campaign will inspire a grassroots political movement in Baltimore.
Transparency, Responsiveness, and a Commitment to Green Values.
This is the winning combination for Glenn Ross, the Green Party, and the new 13th District!