Stephanie Rawlings-Blake went into the family business, a line of work that demands glad-handing and baby-kissing. But apparently there are limits to how up-close-and-personal she wants to get with customers.
At a public hearing last week about her live entertainment bill, the City Council president and daughter of the late Del. Pete Rawlings let a woman have it for addressing her as "Stephanie."
The woman was testifying against the bill but was not the least bit confrontational, judging by the city's tape recording of the proceedings, which I heard Tuesday. Having calmly voiced her concerns, she was actually giving Rawlings-Blake kudos when she let the S-word slip.
"I know you, Stephanie, addressed some of these things and I think you ..."
"Please, please, please," Rawlings-Blake interrupted. "We don't know each other. I'm not going to call you by your first name. ... Show a little respect to the - to us up here."
The woman replied: "I'm sorry. I see everyone as equal. I apologize. Again, we may not think alike ..."
Rawlings-Blake broke in. "It has nothing to do with equal. It has something to do with respect."
The woman asked how she would like to be addressed.
"Madame President. Council President Rawlings-Blake. Mrs. Rawlings-Blake."
The woman tried to continue. "Madame President," she began.
"We're not friends, so - " Rawlings-Blake jumped in again.
Sounding a little shaken, the woman gave up. "I - you know what? I can't reason with the irra- tional," she said to applause.
A political group opposed to the entertainment bill, Independent Movement Political Action Club, issued a news release calling on Rawlings-Blake to apologize.
Rawlings-Blake spokesman Ryan O'Doherty would say only this much: "The council president had an exchange with a constituent that she regretted and wrote directly to the constituent to offer a sincere apology."
The handwritten note opened with a line seldom uttered by politicians: "I was wrong." It also said, "[T]here is no excuse for unfriendliness."
Don't say hey
Rawlings-Blake isn't the first Baltimore pol to demand a little titular respect. At a news conference not long after she assumed the office of mayor, Sheila Dixon took a WBAL reporter to task for prefacing a question with, "Hey, Sheila."
"Hey, Sheila?" she said. "Did you say that to Martin? ... 'Hey, Martin'? "
