According to the indictment, a two-minute call from Holton's phone to Lipscomb's was made just minutes before a City Council meeting on June 12, 2006, at which the councilwoman reported favorably on the proposed tax break for the Homewood/Laureate parcel. On July 10, though, when the City Council approved the measure, Holton abstained. The following year, after Holton had the $12,500 bill for a re-election poll sent to Doracon and the company paid it, she voted in favor of tax benefits for the Four Seasons/Legg parcel.
Holton carried some sway in such matters as chair first of the council's Economic Development and Public Financing Subcommittee, and then of the Taxation and Finance Committee. But surely, given the way city government is structured, the lone-councilwoman theory isn't going to explain everything.
The fact that she has been indicted does speak to how the scandal extends beyond what we originally knew. So, now what?
It's not just a whither-Dixon question, although that's a big part of it. What of Doracon's involvement in other projects, such as the Uplands development, that also got city tax breaks? What of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that a former Dixon campaign chairman received for computer work at City Hall, what of the awarding of contracts to Utech, a company that employed Dixon's sister?
The fact that both the campaign chairman, Dale G. Clark, and the Utech owner, Mildred E. Boyer, have been cooperating with the prosecutor's investigation is one of those drips that, to date, have yet to result in any indictments. Now that Holton and Lipscomb may also have some motivation to cooperate, will that lead to anything?
So many questions, so little time: As The Baltimore Sun's Annie Linskey reported this week, the term of the current grand jury that has been considering Rohrbaugh's evidence expires tomorrow. They could still issue more indictments, or not. Another jury could be convened, or - you guessed it - not. It is part of the process that the state prosecutor neither cofirms nor denies that an investigation is continuing or finished.
Is it just the need to tie up loose ends that makes yesterday's indictments seem so incomplete, so yes-but-what-else? I don't think it's malice, or a need for a bigger gotcha that makes me wonder what else Rohrbaugh has, or doesn't have. After nearly three years of wondering just how money gets spent at City Hall, citizens need answers whether or not they come in the form of indictments.
Instead, the drip-drip-drip continues.
