City Hall

The Charm City Circulator, Baltimore's long-awaited and long-delayed free downtown shuttle bus system, will make its debut today. The Baltimore Transportation Department will launch the Circulator by beginning service on its east-west Orange Route between Hollins Market and Harbor East via the Inner Harbor. It plans to start two other routes - a north-south route between Penn Station and Federal Hill and a route connecting Johns Hopkins Hospital with Harbor East and City Hall - in the spring.

Death came for Arunah Shepherdson Abell on April 19, 1888, just 27 days before he would have celebrated the 51st anniversary of the newspaper he founded in Baltimore in 1837. Abell, who was in his city townhouse at Charles and Madison streets near Mount Vernon Place, had retired about 9:30 the night before, "fully himself in all save physical activity," reported The Sun in a news article the next morning announcing his death. "DEATH OF MR. A.S. ABELL. THE END OF A USEFUL LIFE.

I recently attempted to call Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's office to encourage her to allow the Occupy Baltimore movement to stay overnight in McKeldin Plaza, as members of the group have been doing for weeks. I made the call after regular office hours because I work during the day, but it shouldn't have been a problem to leave a message, right? Wrong. Apparently, the mayor of this city of more than half a million people doesn't have voice mail. After 20 rings, I hung up. From this experience I must conclude that the mayor is only interested in my opinion between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. That's something to consider on Nov. 7. Gregory Sinder, Baltimore

I believe to this day that I accepted the job I was offered at the Evening Sun in 1981 because of the Bromo Seltzer clock. The route from the airport took us right past the downtown tower that (at the time) still defined the Charm City skyline, and I was immediately taken by it. It was retro. It was kitschy. And it seemed real. Just like Baltimore in 1981. Although I'd come to town for an interview at the morning paper, Bob Keller, then the editor of the afternoon paper, was clever enough to snatch me up at the airport.

The body of William Donald Schaefer lay in state Tuesday in the marble rotunda of City Hall, and a line curled around the historic building as people waited to pay their respects. Standing in the bright April sun, the mourners — old and young, rich and poor, black and white — clutched photos of Schaefer and described how he shaped their lives and their city. Here are some of their stories: Deborah Bailey-Kpazahi It's been more than three decades, but Deborah Bailey-Kpazahi still hums the jingle when she sees a street corner trash basket: "Trash Ball, it's a neat game everybody can win. Let me show you how to play.

Fire trucks ringed City Hall Wednesday afternoon, snarling Baltimore's rush hour traffic, after "light smoke" was discovered on the sixth floor of the historic building. Fire Chief Kevin Cartwright said about 5 p.m. that the cause was under investigation. "At present all light smoke has dissipated and firefighters continue" to look for the source, he said. Employees slowly left the building, with none of the urgency evident a day before, when an earthquake unnerved most in the city and led to mass evacuations from government and private buildings.

The next City Hall in the Park is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 24 at Sturgis-Moore Park, adjacent to McCullough Field at Eighth and Montgomery streets. Mayor Craig Moe and city management staff hold the outdoor meetings as an informal opportunity to update residents on city activities and allow residents to meet one-on-one with elected officials and senior staff. The meeting begins with an update by Moe, followed by a brief question and answer period. After the meeting, city management staff will meet individually with residents regarding their specific questions, concerns and suggestions.

Baltimore First Deputy Mayor Andrew B. Frank leaves City Hall this spring after three years of handling economic development, one of the most crucial issues in a city with chronic high unemployment, widespread poverty and sky-high property tax rates. He has served as a crucial bridge between the city's business community and its government and has made important contributions, such as his effort to help push through an affordable-housing law. But he almost certainly won't be around long enough to see through the most important item in his portfolio: slots.

Ask employees how life has been in City Hall for the past two weeks and most will say: "It's business as usual." Officials have reviewed plans for a proposed slots complex, discussed how to keep the poor warm this winter and voted on new rules for crisis pregnancy centers. Gavels have tapped, staplers clicked and printers hummed. Yet in one very significant way, the city's business has been far from routine. Mayor Sheila Dixon has spent the better part of the past two weeks in Baltimore City Circuit Court, defending herself from charges that she stole gift cards from the poor.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's theft case, which remains before a jury this week, has shed light on little-known charitable efforts she ran from City Hall with few controls over solicitations and vague guidelines for who should benefit. As City Council president, Dixon requested or distributed donations for needy families, frequently in the form of gift cards, courtroom testimony and grand jury records show. Others who have held that office say they did not handle or seek donations in the same way. Dixon, a Democrat, is accused by State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh of stealing some of the gift cards intended for charity and using them for personal items.

Locked in a metal filing cabinet in The Sun 's library is a sheaf of manila folders packed with typed pages, copies of paste-up sheets and loops of pink, punched tapes - artifacts of H. L. Mencken's coverage of what he dubbed "the Scopes monkey trial. " Mencken was in poor health by the time The Sun 's offices moved to this brick building on Calvert Street. But more than a half-century after his death, his presence remains strongly felt here. His face, waggish and clutching a cigar between his lips, gazes down on those who pass through The Sun 's lobby.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has once again looked outside Baltimore government for a chief of staff, tapping Maryland Labor Secretary Alexander M. Sanchez for the position. "I want to build on the strength of her vision," Sanchez, 43, said in an interview Monday after the mayor made the announcement. "She's had great success at reducing crime and building up the public schools. " Sanchez — Rawlings-Blake's third chief of staff in less than three years — will succeed Peter O'Malley, Gov. Martin O'Malley's brother.

With a half-dozen key resignations at Baltimore City Hall, some political observers say they're concerned about the recent loss of institutional knowledge in Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration. Since the fall, the city's budget director, development chief, parks director and the mayor's chief of staff have left or announced plans to leave. They were joined this week by Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and the mayor's liaison to the Police Department, Sheryl Goldstein.

William J. Schmidt, a former department store buyer who later became director of administration for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, died Monday at his Bel Air home of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 79. The son of a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. actuary and a homemaker, William Joseph Schmidt was born in Baltimore and raised on Aisquith Street. He was a 1951 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington and earned a bachelor's degree in 1955 in business administration from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

Appearing relaxed while trying to quell talk of a hidden motive behind his decision to resign in three months, the city's blunt-spoken police commissioner did at least concede Friday that he was pushed out of the job. "Look, I was absolutely influenced in this decision," Frederick H. Bealefeld III said. But it wasn't by city officials or a as-yet-undisclosed issue. It was his wife, Linda, and 16-year-old daughter, Erica. Said Bealefeld, his eyes tearing, "They're ready for me to come home.

Top City Hall official Sheryl Goldstein, who served as a liaison between the mayor's office and the Baltimore Police Department, plans to resign next month — a decision she made public hours after Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III announced retirement plans Thursday. Goldstein, who worked closely with Bealefeld, said in an email that it had been a "privilege to serve Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the citizens of Baltimore. " Goldstein said "it was just time to move on to something new. " Her last day will be June 15, she said.

E veryone at City Hall claims to be back to work after that pesky corruption trial. And what a relief! For a minute there, it looked like it wouldn't be business as usual. Shortly after 12 jurors decided someone smart enough to run a city couldn't confuse $1,000 in gift cards with a long-dead flower arrangement, one of Mayor Sheila Dixon 's staunchest backers seemed to bail. "I don't think she can continue to be mayor," Councilwoman Rikki Spector told reporters Tuesday.

A spate of threatening letters - some containing bullets and white powder - have been delivered to Baltimore City Hall and the city circuit courthouse in recent days, prompting a joint investigation by city police and U.S. Postal inspectors. City Hall was evacuated for about 40 minutes Monday afternoon after a clerk opened a letter containing white powder that police later determined to be harmless, said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Four letters, including at least two with bullets enclosed, also were sent to judges at the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. courthouse on Friday and Monday, authorities said.

The first City Hall in the Park is scheduled for Wednesday, April 25 from 6:30-8 p.m. at Discovery Park, Greenhill Avenue at Harrison Drive. Mayor Craig Moe and city management staff hold the outdoor meetings as an informal opportunity to update residents on city activities and allow residents to meet one-on-one with elected officials and senior staff. The meeting begins with an update by Moe, followed by a brief question and answer period. After the meeting, city management staff will meet individually with residents regarding their specific questions, concerns and suggestions.

There were at least as many police officers as protesters in front of City Hall on Tuesday evening after a group of about 40 people walked there from the site of a planned youth jail in downtown Baltimore. "It's screwed up," said community activist Kim Trueheart of the police presence. "It's a function of not wanting to understand that having a conversation is an important step in healing, solving problems and communicating. " The rally was organized to call attention to the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old unarmed African-American who was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer named George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., at the end of February.