Mayor

Members of Baltimore's fire and police pension board are questioning whether one of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's top aides should remain part of the lucrative pension system that covers sworn public safety officers. Administration officials say Robert M. Maloney — a career firefighter — has worn multiple hats within city government since becoming a deputy to the mayor in August. He is a sworn paramedic who responds to emergency calls, they say, while as a mayoral aide, he monitors agencies including the Health Department and the Mayor's Office of Information Technology.

Bravo! With her latest proposals ("Mayor to propose new taxes on billboards, taxi rides," April 22) Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has joined with our governor in his tax policies. If it moves, tax it (taxis). If it stands still, tax it (billboards). Theodore W. Hirsh, Baltimore Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is expected to introduce legislation Monday that would give the city authority to levy two new taxes. One bill would authorize a tax of about 25 cents per taxi trip. Another would impose a tax on billboard advertisements within the city limits - $15 per square foot for billboards that electronically change images, and $5 per square foot for those that don't. A third measure would keep the tax on parking at its current rate of 20 percent, instead of decreasing it to 19 percent, as had been planned.

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

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday she's pressing her Department of Transportation to ensure speed camera accuracy after officials acknowledged that 590 erroneous tickets were issued by the city's new multimillion-dollar camera system. At the same time, the mayor said, she's committed to a program that she believes helps protect children from drivers who speed in school zones. "I'm going to continue to put pressure on the Department of Transportation to continue to improve the program and to get it right," Rawlings-Blake said.

The funeral procession for Matthew Hersl crawled through the tight streets of Southeast Baltimore, moving past the Milan restaurant, the Inner Harbor Travel agency and the Little Italy parking garage. Steve Hersl, Matt's brother, blared his car horn as he inched along. A blue passenger van with a Baltimore Orioles hat resting on the dashboard led the convoy through the 45-year-old city finance supervisor's neighborhood. As the procession passed his home, Steve leaned out his black Hyundai and yelled, "I love you, Matt!"

Gov. Martin O'Malley told The Sun on Wednesday that he would be open to political accountability for the state of city schools, according to our Statehouse Reporter Erin Cox.  In an interview with Sun editors, the governor said that he would back a measure similar to one lawmakers voted in for Prince George's County giving the county's executive an unprecedented level of authority over the long-troubled (though the district outperformed Baltimore...

W.E.B. DuBois High School is the latest to win the Mayor's Attendance Campaign competition, after its ninth-grade class increasing its daily attendance by nearly 11 percentage points. The school was surprised with the honor--which includes a dance party staffed by a 92Q DJ at The Grille at Peerce's Landing--with a visit from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake city schools CEO Andres Alonso, and Jonathon Rondeau, of the Family League of Baltimore.  The ninth-grade class increased its daily attendance from 63.42 percent to 74.05 percent, according to a release.

Richard Oare, an attorney who successfully defended the the mayor of York, Pa., on a decades-old murder charge dating to a 1969 race riot, died of prostate cancer March 26 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The White Hall resident was 68. Born John Richard Oare Jr. in Baltimore and raised in Baynesville on Hillendale Road, he was the son of a builder who constructed homes in northern Baltimore County. His mother was a homemaker. He attended Immaculate Conception School and was a 1962 graduate of Towson Catholic High School, where he played baseball and was named to an All Metro baseball team.

The Rawlings-Blake administration and Baltimore's fire unions are battling over the city's proposal to require firefighters to work longer hours — 24 hours straight, every three days. The mayor says the move — which mirrors staffing trends in other large U.S. cities — will save millions for cash-strapped Baltimore while giving its 1,300 firefighters a huge pay raise by creating a longer work week. The fire unions, however, say the move would represent a cut to their hourly pay and is unfair to employees who have built their lives around a work schedule that's been in place for 20 years.