Mayor

When Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke met with Baltimoreans United for Leadership Development Monday night, he said he had been "proud to run on a platform that was essentially the BUILD agenda." He then politely but forcefully rejected a number of demands concerning the school system and law enforcement from that church-based coalition."We have different roles," he said. "Ultimately the responsibility for governing in this city is mine."We agree. The mayor, not BUILD, was elected by voters to run Baltimore and, with the City Council, operate the city within its budget.

There's no better time for Sheila Dixon to be mayor of Baltimore than now. After 20 years in public office, she knows the political terrain, the pitfalls of the job and, most inviting, the promise that the office holds for improving a city that she knows and loves. She is the Democratic candidate best suited to advance the city's successes and improve upon its failings. Ms. Dixon has matured as a public official, developing a keen ear and a cooler head without sacrificing her passion for the work.

There was cause for celebration in Annapolis yesterday - the unpleasantness is over. The voters re-elected Mayor Ellen O. Moyer after one of the nastier elections in recent memory. Ms. Moyer was demonized for the city's traffic, high property taxes and downtown's languishing Market House. But voters realized that much of the criticism was overblown (recognizing, for instance, that she has actually lowered the city's tax rate). As a result, she was re-elected by a margin several hundred votes larger than when she first took office four years ago. There are lessons in this.

James Francis "Shirt-sleeves" O'Neill, a retired lawyer who had served as mayor of Bel Air in the early 1970s, died of cancer Monday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. He was 86. "Jim was a character, spontaneous, funny and off the wall sometimes but not all the time," said Todd Holden, a former Aegis reporter and photographer who was a longtime friend. "He used to ride a minibike when gas went through the roof, and always had a Red Baron white scarf around his neck as he made his way around town," said Mr. Holden.

William Donald Schaefer, the dominant political figure of the last half-century of Maryland history, died Monday after a "do-it-now" career that changed the face of Baltimore while bringing a new burst of energy to the city he loved. Mr. Schaefer was 89. In four terms as mayor and two as governor, he was a champion of big projects that transformed Baltimore: Harborplace, Camden Yards, the National Aquarium, the Convention Center and the light rail among them. Yet he was also intensely involved with the mundane details of city neighborhoods.

A plea agreement that settles a case never quite has the drama of a verdict - like a boxing match that ends in a decision rather than a knockout. But when the boxer is Sheila Dixon, you just knew she wasn't going to go down without a fight. Or a final jab, even after the bout was essentially over. "She's a tough street lady," as a supporter, state Del. Curt Anderson, says. But it was in an uncharacteristically small voice that the Baltimore mayor went through the legal motions required of criminal defendants pleading guilty in exchange for lighter sentences - answering the judge's questions on whether she understood she was waiving her right to trial, to presenting witnesses in her defense, to any future appeals.

I agree with letter writer Sharon Frierson that the view train and inter-city bus travelers get as they travel through Baltimore is atrocious ("City doesn't put its best foot forward," April 15). But the idea that the mayor of Baltimore or Maryland's governor is responsible for changing it is ridiculous. I am certain that neither of them dumped the garbage or destroyed the property or wrote the graffiti. This problem, like the violence in the city, will cease only when the community culture will no longer tolerate it. Anita Heygster, Pasadena Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

It's time to move the chairs. Nine days after back-to-back snowstorms buried Baltimore, neighborhoods still resemble a yard sale after a hurricane -- littered with not only chairs but with bar stools and ottomans, kitty litter containers and potted plants, Formica tables and ironing boards -- put down by weary residents claiming title to the public parking spaces they had spent hours shoveling. But now, the new mayor's magnanimous gesture of not enforcing the illegal claiming of public space is over.

The city school board's announcement last weekend of five semifinalists for the next Baltimore superintendent of schools raises a thorny political problem for Mayor Kurt Schmoke in this election year: How closely should the mayor, who staked much political capital on improving the schools during his 1987 election campaign, identify himself with the selection process of a new schools chief this time around?Technically, of course, it is the school board members, not the mayor, who are supposed to make the final decision in such matters.

FOR ADMIRERS of Maryland's school-reform effort, the showdown between a governor who wants to please and a mayor determined to dig in his heels holds ominous implications.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke got what he wanted this past week -- a veto of legislation attaching strings to $5.9 million in state funds for city schools. In return, Gov. Parris N. Glendening got a less-than-firm commitment from the mayor to sign onto a city-state school-management partnership within 60 days.In other words, the mayor won this round, even though the governor held the big cards.