It takes real effort to penetrate the mysteries of Baltimore City government, where millions of dollars in public spending are approved in the blink of an eye and dollars disappear into the maw of departments that haven't been audited for decades. For citizens, there's plenty at stake, and we take you behind the headlines.

How good a job is Baltimore doing supplying residents with clean, affordable water and making changes that will finally ends its practice of releasing trash and millions of gallons of human waste into local waterways and Chesapeake Bay?

Millions are raised through government grants and star-studded galas, yet Baltimore's homeless services have been mired in bureaucracy and increasingly-harsh policy prescriptions, including encampment razing. Meanwhile, curled up in doorways and on friends' couches, thousands in the city still lack a place to call home.

Hate isn’t new. But the 2016 presidential election – filled with harsh rhetoric about race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, trans status and religion – has generated troubling reports about a surge in hate crimes in America. Hate crimes and acts of bias are notoriously under-counted but Baltimore Brew is helping document them, though our reporting (archived here) and our partnership with ProPublica's "Documenting Hate" project.

At the ideal tavern, there's a jolly barkeep, convivial regulars and everybody knows your name. At the nuisance establishment? They sell cheap little bottles from 6 am to 2 am, attract loitering and drug-dealing, and thwart community leaders' efforts to lift up their neighborhoods. Critics say the Baltimore Liquor Board fails to protect communities from troublesome licensees. Reform efforts are underway. But so are powerful forces dedicated to keeping the status quo.

A city-within-the-city on Baltimore's sleepy South Shore? That's what Under Armour's Kevin Plank has in mind for Port Covington. His company, Sagamore, has planned a massive mixed-use development there, centered on a new UA corporate headquarters. And they've asked taxpayers for the biggest financing package in city history - $660 million in bond funding for $535 million in infrastructure improvements. Why, many residents are asking, should a brand new mini-city get such massive aid when the old one has such urgent needs?

A gubernatorial race and several challenges to entrenched legislative seats are making for high drama in the upcoming election.

BIG DOLLARS, LITTLE OVERSIGHT Police officers making more than $200,000 a year, over half of it in overtime. Patrol officers who make few arrests pulling down more than the mayor. Lieutenants and sergeants making $100/hour via overtime work directing traffic at parades. Some of our findings after a comprehensive look at Baltimore's steadily rising spending for police overtime.

A turbulent year of protests in 2015 made Baltimore take a hard look in the mirror and sent shock waves through the sleepy and secure political establishment. With the incumbent mayor's decision not to seek re-election and a large batch of City Council seats up for grabs, the 2016 election promises to be eventful.

The Fairfield Renewable Energy Project is a proposed trash-to-energy power plant in South Baltimore that would burn garbage, chopped-up tires and car parts and release hundreds of pounds of lead and mercury annually. It's been embraced as a job-creator by the city and the state, but it continues to be opposed by residents and environmental groups who say it will harm people's health.