Baltimore Primary 2024: Mayor
Overview:
Former mayor Sheila Dixon was the first African-American women on the city council and first woman mayor of Baltimore. Growing up in a working class home in West Baltimore, she studied at Towson and Hopkins and has experience as an educator as well as politician. She emphasizes her environmental record and various successful programs and collaborations in her tenure as mayor — a tenure ended by the scandal of being found guilty of embezzling gift cards[1]
A nice guy — somehow conveyed as an insult by his opponents — current mayor Brandon Scott grew up in Park Heights and was one of the youngest ever councilpersons elected. Though learning from and working for the more mainstream, conservative and neoliberal personalities in city government he increasingly championed progressive policies in office and rhetoric on campaign — but his scandal free time as mayor has struggled to manifest many of his more ambitious goals.
Entrepreneur Bob Wallace grew up in Cherry Hill and studied at Dartmouth before returning to Baltimore. He has started companies in IT, energy and training and wants to apply business management thinking to city operations — identifying high taxes and crime as the biggest obstacles to economic opportunity here.[2]
Wendy Bozel is endorsed by the Maryland Forward Party[3], Hill-Freeman is endorsed by the DMV Daily[4] and both Hill-Freeman and Kevin Harris completed both the ballotpedia and League of Women Voters questionnaires and can be compared on those sites and their campaign webpages[5]. Thiru Vignarajah dropped out this week[6].
All recent polls[7] show Scott in the lead, narrowly, and nobody aside from the top 3 are polling at more than a 1 percent, so I will focus on Dixon, Scott and Wallace:
Transit Equity:
All three support the red line and all support electrifying city vehicles (Scott in process of doing so). Both Dixon and Scott support traffic calming measures and both have taken tangible steps to make equitable transit a high priority in their tenure — and both share some responsibility for the insufficient present state of transit infrastructure.
Dixon started the circulator, Scott expanded it, both want to further expand it, and Wallace dismissing buses as the answer and opts for a bigger bolder future anchored around light rail.[8]
Dixon focused on various fixes and adjustments here and there like adding bus stops, stopping people from parking in them, connecting the buses of JHU and other colleges (who don’t pay taxes) into the general public system, and collecting speeding ticket revenues etc — all fine ideas, but minor and reactive rather than big picture thinking.
Scott doesn’t tiptoe around the obstacles car-oriented transit represents for walkable cities and reliable movement across the city from people without personal vehicles and has tangible evidence of improvements to smart transit such as Complete Streets that have led to reduction in pedestrian deaths[9] and bike lane expansion.
Public Safety:
Perplexingly, all of Scott’s opponents attack him on public safety while not substantially differing from him on it.
Dixon is endorsed by current and former Sheriffs and States Attorney’s[10] who emphasize the need for a safer city, one of the issues most often and passionately vocalized by residents and voters. However, both Dixon and Scott have pushed for very similar policies of striving to simultaneously reduce arrests and violent crime, and have both overseen substantial reductions in violent crimes and homicides (maybe).*
Scott has made reduction of gun violence a major goal of his administration, and his tenure has possibly seen a significant drop* in both homicides and unconstitutional arrests through an approach centered on a Group Violence Reduction Strategy[11]. He has rhetorically embraced the concept of defund the police[12] and treating gun violence as a public health issue[13], though law enforcement spending remains an enormous[14] and growing[15] share of city spending.
Wallace was a lifelong republican until unsuccessful bid for mayor 4 years ago[16], wants to dismantle the Group Violence Reduction Strategy endeavor[17]; he may also be involved in a minor legal violation: municipal records list his address in violation of city law that requires a candidate live in the city a year before running for office there.[18]
Sources of Support and Funding:
Scott — endorsed by SEIU, AFSCME, AFT, Baltimore Teachers Union, JUJ, AFL-CIO, Progressive Maryland and other unions and progressive groups[19] — has raised more money; biggest donors consist of real estate developers and various medium sized businesses.
Dixon as lower donation totals — these include construction companies, Sinclair Broadcasting, Atlas Group, former office holders including the corrupt former sheriff Anderson and corrupt former comptroller Pratt, and conservative council member Costello;[20] the owner of the Baltimore Sun also donated to Dixon via a super PAC.
Bob Wallace is rich, and most of his campaign’s funds come from himself.
Miscellaneous Other Things I Like:
Dixon made ending homelessness in Baltimore a major priority [21] and began tangible steps toward this aspiration such as the construction of the city’s first 24/7 homeless shelter[22]. She caused a stir by slamming a shoe and calling out a racist colleague in the ‘90s[23] and as a huge fan of people using shoes as props in confronting abuse[24] i think this is extremely cool.
I think I like Wallace’s “villages” idea to rethink city organization[25] and would like to better understand that vision and plan, and I think he’s on the right track framing rail transit hubs as a potential desirable destination and economic focal point as a pathway to increased ridership and city walkability.
As city councilperson,Scott voted against Port Covington tax subsidies and some of the more disgusting police policies such as aerial surveillance, and a number of my other reasons for preferring him back in 2020 remain[26]
Conclusion:
Despite Dixon’s latest apology[27], the gift cards scandal may have been a piece of a broader pattern of favoritism and ignoring legal restrictions[28] that continues today at least in minor forms[29].
That said, I think she is extremely similar to Brandon Scott in many ways — good and bad — and it is that similarity that makes me less worried about the prospect of her victory but also have me questioning the purpose of her attempt to return to public office at all: like Mfume, Dixon was an inspiring pioneer a generation ago who’s spearheading of positive change is now decades behind her, and seems more focused on political leadership and campaigning as a familiar lifestyle rather than a means to push the city forward in meaningful ways.
I have a growing set of concerns and qualms with Brandon Scott such as backtracking on his pledge to end the deadly incinerator contract[30], shutting down/ignoring young people advocating for a skate park promised and rescinded them during a budget meeting last spring [31], and his attitude of “we have this covered” in instances when his administration clearly doesn’t — I’d like the humility I sometimes see and value and welcome to expand into an earnest acknowledgement that he needs more help to get his rhetoric into action…
Despite such reservations and many others, he seems to be earnestly trying and is the candidate with the most to show for his efforts. Top down change is not a productive hope or aim, and we must both fight and support the city together in a bunch of ways to make life in this city better.
Brandon Scott is my top choice for Mayor in the Baltimore Democratic Primary
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Mayor of Baltimore ’24 Primary Links and References:
*possibly — the Baltimore police department has a history of withholding and obfuscating data in ways that make these trends hard to parse:
[3] https://www.marylandforwardparty.com/wendy_bozel
[4] https://www.instagram.com/thedmvdaily/p/C5hEtFdRpYO/?img_index=1
[5] https://ballotpedia.org/Kevin_P._Harris_(Maryland_mayoral_candidate)
https://www.vote411.org/ballot
https://ballotpedia.org/Wendell_Hill-Freeman
[7] https://www.wbal.com/a-new-poll-has-sheila-dixon-in-the-lead-for-baltimore-mayoral-race/
https://www.goucher.edu/hughes-center/documents/Goucher-College-Poll-Baltimore-City-Part-1.pdf
https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/04/14/poll-mayor-scott-dixon-close-race/
[8] The bulk of my evaluation of their transit stances are extracted from their statements and discussion at the transit debate hosed by Real News Network:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oiby_OgfAUw&ab_channel=TheRealNewsNetwork[10] https://www.wypr.org/wypr-news/2024-04-08/top-prosecutor-endorses-dixon-for-baltimore-mayor
[11] https://apnews.com/article/baltimore-homicides-decrease-2023-d88000d65d3916d1fbbe6352becd8881
[12] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/31/962638232/baltimores-new-mayor-rethinks-police-funding
[14] https://www.vera.org/publications/what-policing-costs-in-americas-biggest-cities/baltimore-md
https://policescorecard.org/md/police-department/baltimore
[18] https://www.yahoo.com/news/bob-wallace-hopes-second-mayoral-162000339.html
[19] https://bluevoterguide.org/MD/candidate_Brandon_Scott/5558
[21] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1675905/dixon-unveils-plan-to-end-homelessness-in-10-years/
[22] https://www.baltimoresun.com/2009/08/11/mayor-breaks-ground-for-shelter/
[23] https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/community/is-baltimore-ready-to-forgive-sheila-dixon/
[24] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/no-regrets-iraqi-who-threw-his-shoes-bush-2023-03-14/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/george-bush-shoe-throw-oral-history-al-zaidi.html
[26] https://www.patreon.com/posts/here-are-some-i-37426489
https://www.patreon.com/posts/evaluation-of-42440344
[28] https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2020/05/18/the-sheila-dixon-story-it-wasnt-just-about-the-gift-cards/
[30] https://www.wastedive.com/news/baltimore-wheelabrator-lives-on-controversy-zero-waste/588279/
[31] personal observations in attendance of budget hearing, april 2023
by Mike Hanes, May 2024
