Mayor S Office

Two cities in the same state. Each has a woman as mayor. Both women are African-American. And both have the first name of Sheila. Well, that's how it was for three weeks, anyway. Sheila Dixon became the first female mayor of Baltimore this year. Dixon ascended to the post of mayor (or descended, depending on how you feel about the mayor's office in Baltimore) when former Mayor Martin O' Malley left for the governor's mansion. From July 26 through Aug. 15, Sheila M. Finlayson was the acting mayor of Annapolis, standing in for incumbent Mayor Ellen O. Moyer, who was in Europe visiting the sister cities of our state capital.

By increasing the size of her staff and providing salary bumps to dozens of employees, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has increased the payroll of the mayor's office by nearly 15 percent since taking office in January. Top Dixon administration officials and their aides - about 87 employees in all - are being paid nearly $5 million a year, according to an analysis of payroll data by The Sun. That is up a little more than $640,000 a year from the waning months of Martin O'Malley's mayoral administration.

Delivering her first State of the City address yesterday, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon proposed broad changes to the Police Department, speedier redevelopment of vacant land and the creation of several new positions to put disparate city agencies on the same page. Speaking in the recently refurbished City Council chamber, where her newly minted Cabinet sat alongside top elected officials, Dixon also vowed a "significant" increase in arts funding, more staff at recreation centers and a study of property taxes - a response to escalating assessments.

As members of Mayor Martin O'Malley's new administration prepared to move into City Hall yesterday, about a dozen clerical workers in the mayor's office packed their bags and left after one day's notice that they had lost their jobs."

IT'S TIME to say sober things about the mayoral race and what has passed for public discussion thereof. First, we're supposed to have a race. You know, where the candidates declare for office and say why they are running.Instead, there are shadow mayoral campaigns by the front-runners -- City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III and his cousin, Kweisi Mfume, with quiet, serious campaigning by former City Council member Carl Stokes and a few other wannabes.The ugliest part is the rampant speculation and outright pandering to get Mr. Mfume to step in and take all the marbles.

Trickling into a Fells Point community center one night last week, more than a dozen Latino city residents shook hands, waved, hugged one another."Como estas?" said one smiling woman to another.These were more than friendly greetings -- they also were nods to a common culture, one often overlooked in Baltimore's mainly black and white racial scene.These business people, parents and activists said they feel overlooked, sometimes blatantly disregarded, in Baltimore. They said this is something they hope the city's next mayor will help change.

Promising to increase school funding by $25 million in his first budget, Baltimore mayoral candidate Carl Stokes kicked off his campaign yesterday morning in front of City Hall surrounded by about 30 people."

Controversial radio talk-show host C. Miles Smith was fired this week for taking his stinging commentary too far when he made unsupported allegations on the air about Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's politics and sex life.During his regular program Thursday, Smith, the host of a morning talk show on WOLB-AM (1010), criticized Schmoke for defending city police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier, who was under fire for miscounting the city's shootings.Smith said on his program that Schmoke was defending Frazier because the commissioner perhaps had pictures of the mayor in compromising situations.

WASHINGTON -- Among the galas and tributes for retiring Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. is an unusual kind of salute: Public school studies honoring Barry's legacy.To some critics, this is no history lesson. The Barry story presented in the study guide, they say, is an airbrushed account that glosses over some significant blemishes of the Barry era, notably the extraordinary arrest of the mayor and his subsequent six-month prison term for cocaine possession.When district students come to school today, their teachers will have at their fingertips "The Curriculum for the Study of the Legacy of Mayor Marion Barry Jr.," a document written by the mayor's office and distributed to the city's 146 public schools.

In a rare act of political sacrifice, the Annapolis city council voted unanimously last night to hand over the bulk of its power to an unelected bureaucrat charged with bringing order to an unruly municipal operation.Also, council members voted 8-1 to make it easier for voters to punish them for poor performance through special recall elections. But they killed legislation that would have prohibited aldermen from meddling in the daily operation of city affairs."With this measure, we are effectively changing the form of government we have," said Alderman Dean L. Johnson, a Ward 2 independent who plans a run for mayor.

Say this much for Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III: He's willing to deliver on a bet. Bealefeld appeared on radio station 98 Rock on Tuesday morning to sing a karaoke version of Whitney Houston's "I'm Every Woman," honoring an agreement he made with the mayor's office after his all-male police team lost a marathon relay Saturday to an all-women's team headed by an official from City Hall. "Suddenly, every drug dealer in town is petrified," cracked host Mickey Cucchiella after Bealefeld cruised through his droll rendition of the song.

The Baltimore City Council asserted itself on a budget battle for the first time in more than a decade Thursday evening, stripping money from Mayor Sheila Dixon's $2.4 billion spending plan. The move is designed to press Dixon to restore money for recreation centers, pools and other programs by cutting $1.1 million from the mayor's other priorities. And it sends a clear message: This City Council has the votes to act independently. "I knew we'd get this," City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake said after the votes.

Two city educators whose endorsements appear on the back of what federal authorities describe as a gang handbook recommended the leader's teachings to Mayor Sheila Dixon's education liaison. The mayor's office refused to elaborate on the meeting, saying it did not pursue the suggestion and has no knowledge of the book or Eric Brown, 40, the man authorities say is the leader of the Black Guerrilla Family. But the disclosure sheds light on how Brown's efforts might have been disseminated from behind prison walls.

Baltimore City Council members are threatening to cut pet programs from Mayor Sheila Dixon's office as they scour the city's $2.2 billion budget for money to offset her proposed cuts to recreation centers, community pools and Police Athletic League centers. Tuesday evening, they focused on the mayor's Office of Neighborhoods, describing the $580,000 program as "duplicative" with the services already provided by the city. "If I had to make a choice and it was the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods or Parks and Recreation," said Councilman Edward Reisinger, "I can't see the rationale for laying off rec center directors."

After being invited yesterday to join more than 70 mayors for a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House today, indicted Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon was abruptly un-invited hours later, according to her spokesman. "We were really hoping that the mayor was going to make this meeting at the White House," said spokesman Scott Peterson. "But it does not look like it is going to happen." Peterson could not say why the mayor was un-invited to the meeting, coordinated by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

A day after becoming the first Baltimore mayor to be indicted, Mayor Sheila Dixon maintained a public schedule designed to show her steely backbone and close connections with the community - donning boxing gloves at a gym in West Baltimore and later giving heartfelt advice to underprivileged girls at a Boys and Girls Club in Brooklyn. "If you make a mistake today, you can get up the next day and keep focused with what you need to do," Dixon, a Democrat, told the Brooklyn group. She could have been talking about herself.

Most City Council members agreed last week that the city's worsening financial situation merits budget cuts, but they're not sure Mayor Sheila Dixon's list of $36.5 million in proposals is the best way to close the gap. Some want Dixon's office to take more of a direct hit from the spending reductions. Others believe the city should look at dipping into its rainy day fund to make up the shortfall. Councilman Bernard C. "Jack" Young, chairman of the budget and appropriations committee, said that next year he would like to shelve the mayor's Office of Neighborhoods, the Office of Criminal Justice, the CitiStat program, her homelessness programs and the planned Office of Sustainability.

Here in the state capital, where politics is a spectator sport, a group of neighborhood activists and city aldermen - not to mention loads of residents who've turned out for community forums - is pushing for an overhaul at City Hall. Two city council members say they've been working hard to merge a pair of charter changes that would rein in day-to-day power that has become concentrated in the mayor's office. Another lawmaker thinks maybe appointing a blue-ribbon panel would help sort out whether a city manager or a strengthened city administrator would be more effective.

City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake might be Baltimore's mayor-in-waiting, but there was no waiting yesterday. At 6:49 a.m. yesterday, her office issued an e-mail titled, "Council President Declares Victory in 9/11 'Run to Remember' Challenge." The 5K road race began 11 minutes later. The news release was embargoed until 7 a.m., but still! Don't runners usually cross the finish line before claiming victory? "I learned from working on campaigns that you declare victory as early as possible," said Rawlings-Blake spokesman Ryan O'Doherty.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's former spokesman, a longtime confidant who helped establish the administration's public message, has been subpoenaed in the state prosecutor's widening probe of City Hall, The Sun learned yesterday. Anthony W. McCarthy served as a top aide and communications director to Dixon starting in January 2007 and left the office several months later after facing an unrelated investigation, which resulted in no charges being filed. "We will fully cooperate with whatever it is they want," said McCarthy's lawyer, A. Dwight Pettit.