Mayor

Comedian, actor and Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby comes to Baltimore next month in an unexpected role: political fundraiser. Cosby will be the star attraction Jan. 11 at a $4,000-a-plate dinner at the Tremont Grand on North Charles Street to benefit Otis Rolley , a former city housing and planning official who is challenging Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in the Democratic primary for mayor. There also will be a $500-a-head reception and a $75 stand-up performance.

Acting in defiance of the city aldermen, Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins has notified his public information director that he intends to keep him on the job at his current salary.The City Council in June eliminated the position of director of public information and tourism in an effort to trim the 1994-1995 fiscal budget. The job had paid $59,609.At the same time, the council created a new position of public information officer, with a salary of $41,126.In a letter dated Aug. 8, Mr. Hopkins told the director of public information, Thomas Roskelly, that he was appointing him to the job of public information officer.

BEWARE of the "box people." That's what Mayor Martin O'Malley told the graduates of the College of Notre Dame on North Charles Street Saturday. It was a sound message, one that the graduates ought to heed. But in his address Baltimore's mayor may have revealed one of his own weaknesses - an inability to separate his friends from his enemies. He's right that "box people" are to be avoided. These folks are tradition-bound. They're locked into a tried-and-true way of going about their jobs.

For all intents and purposes, it was a terrible day to be the mayor of Baltimore.Two people were killed and two others were wounded in a spray of automatic weapons fire in one of the city's "Drug Free Zones." A woman was shot in the head and killed in broad daylight in front of her home after taking her grandchild to school.A gang of armed robbers was still at large after holding up two grocery stores with shotguns, and the mayor had to attend a memorial service for a 7-year-old boy who had been sexually assaulted and murdered.

MEMORIAL Stadium, long may she stand! That should have been the stance of former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke. It should be Mayor Martin O'Malley's stance as well. But it wasn't - and it isn't. So that grand old sports stadium on 33rd Street is being smashed and pulverized. All that will remain - perhaps - is the picturesque, 10-story memorial facade with stainless-steel lettering. Former Mayor Schmoke let his powerful housing czar, Daniel Henson, turn this valuable site over to a nonprofit group intent on building subsidized housing for low-income elderly.

A column in yesterday's Maryland section misstated Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's middle name, Lidell.The Sun regrets the error.Submitted for your approval is one Kurt Louis Schmoke, beleaguered mayor of a large East Coast city. Recently re-elected by a large majority, the mayor soon became afflicted with delusions of grandeur and competence, leading him to a bend in the road that leads to: The Twilight Zone.Rod Serling, where are you now that you're really needed? "The Twilight Zone" creator and writer might have written just such an opening -- albeit somewhat better -- for an episode about the beloved mayor of Charm City -- clearly living in a parallel universe where 90 percent of the streets were plowed after the recent blizzard.

Does the mayor of Baltimore have too much power? City Councilman Carl Stokes thinks so.Frustrated that the mayor has the final say on all major contracts and expenditures, Mr. Stokes is introducing a measure to restructure government.Mr. Stokes, a two-term councilman from East Baltimore's 2nd District, wants to amend the city charter to strip the voting rights of the mayor's two appointees on the Board of Estimates. The five-member panel approves the city budget and most other financial matters.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke traveled to the East Baltimore stronghold of his chief political rival yesterday to trumpet $17 million in development projects in four neighborhoods along the Harford Road corridor.One of the projects announced by the mayor includes a $103,000 city loan to build two bars, lounges and meeting rooms in the clubhouse of the Poets' Athletic Club, a non-profit fraternal organization of former Paul Laurence Dunbar High School athletes.Another project the mayor announced was the construction of a Rite Aid Discount Pharmacy on city-owned land that had been vacant since riots swept through the area in the late 1960s.

With time running out in Baltimore's mayoral campaign, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and City Council President Mary Pat Clarke tempered their attacks on each other yesterday and trumpeted their abilities to lead the city over the next four years.Mr. Schmoke, facing a stiff challenge in his bid for a third term in what has been an often bitter campaign, described himself in a two-hour radio debate as "a problem-solver" and "leader" who has successfully steered the city through years of declining federal aid and 13l fundamental shifts in the economy.

In a new "community newsletter" published by her office, Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy excoriates the mayor in a three-page commentary, claiming he has pushed "failed" reforms and starved her overburdened office of funding. She also accuses The Sun of inaccurate reporting and unfair editorials about her and her office. Jessamy says the newsletter is meant to educate city residents about what her office is doing, but some people wonder whether Jessamy, who intends to run for re-election next year, is improperly using public money for political purposes.