Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, flanked during 2010 parade by City Council Members Rochelle ‘Rikki’ Spector (D-5th), left, and William H. Cole 4th (D-11th), was inaugurated Tues. for a full 4-year term as Balto.’s mayor. (VoB File Photo/Stephen Janis)
FORMER EHRLICH CAMPAIGN MANAGER
ALSO CONVICTED IN ROBOCALL SCHEME
A good/bad day for Maryland politicians
THE SPECTRE OF SHEILA DIXON
By Alan Z. Forman
At almost the identical hour the Mayor of Baltimore was sworn in for her first full term Tuesday by a court clerk accused of “brandishing” a handgun and trying to punch a local blogger who had prevented the reelection of the clerk’s daughter to the City Council, the campaign manager of former Gov. Robert Ehrlich was convicted of election fraud, and ex-P.G. County Executive Jack Johnson was sentenced to seven years in prison for bribery and corruption.
Barely two blocks from City Hall, outside of which Stephanie Rawlings-Blake took the oath of office administered by Clerk of the Courts Frank M. Conaway Sr., Ehrlich Campaign Manager Paul Schurick was found guilty on all counts relating to illegal robocalls made on Election Day 2010 in a botched attempt to prevent voters from casting ballots for Gov. Martin O’Malley, who went on to defeat Ehrlich by a wide margin.
The calls were allegedly orchestrated by political operative Julius Henson, who the Ehrlich campaign paid just over $1 per voter contacted — for a total of $112,000 — in a Republican attempt to suppress African-American votes for Democrat O’Malley.
Henson, who is scheduled for trial on similar charges in February, has said the calls were not meant to keep black voters from going to the polls and that he does not believe the phone messages were illegal.
Schurick was tried in the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse, the back of which faces City Hall. Blake’s oath of office was administered, as is customary, by the city’s Circuit Court clerk.
MARRED BY LIGHT RAIN
The outdoor inaugural ceremony was marred somewhat by light rain, with the mayor standing under an umbrella held by her husband, Kent Blake, who, like Conaway, illegally collected Homestead Tax credits on more than one property in violation of a state rule limiting married couples to claiming the benefit on a single residence.
Immediately prior to his wife’s becoming mayor, Blake repaid seven years’ worth of credits on a house he has owned in Columbia since before their marriage.
Conaway denied being aware he was receiving the break on a rental property he owns in Northwest Baltimore, but said during the mayoral campaign in August he would pay the money back.
The court clerk, along with State Sen. Catherine E. Pugh (D-40th), who also attended Rawlings-Blake’s inauguration, ran a failed campaign for mayor in the September 2011 Democratic primary, in which the incumbent handily defeated five challengers.
On Nov. 21 he had an altercation outside his residence with blogger Adam Meister, who had outed City Councilwoman Belinda K.Conaway (D-7th) for allegedly not living in her council district as required by law.
DEFEATED IN SEPT. AND NOV.
The younger Conaway was subsequently defeated in the September primary and as a write-in candidate in November by incoming Councilman Nick Mosby.
Johnson was convicted in Prince George’s County, the state’s third most populous jurisdiction.
He and his wife Leslie, a former P.G. County Councilwoman — who was elected in November 2010 despite her indictment and arrest, but resigned eight months later as part of a plea agreement — were taken into custody earlier that month as Johnson served out the final weeks of his eight-year tenure as county executive.
On the day of the arrests, federal agents wiretapped him directing his wife by telephone to destroy a $100,000 bribery check, which she flushed down a toilet, and to hide $79,600 cash in her underwear.
Mrs. Johnson was subsequently apprehended outside the couple’s home, with the money stuffed in her bra. She pled guilty to evidence tampering and is scheduled to be sentenced Friday. [To read accounts of the Johnson bust, click here.]
VOWED TO APPEAL CONVICTION
Schurick’s lawyer, A. Dwight Pettit, vowed to appeal the robocall conviction, for which prosecutors had argued that calls went out on the evening of Election Day to approximately 110,000 voters in Baltimore and Prince George’s County — jurisdictions with a high percentage of African-American voters — to encourage blacks to stay home in the mistaken belief the election had already been decided.
“Hello. I’m calling to let everybody know that Governor O’Malley and President Obama have been successful,” the robocall incorrectly informed voters. “Our goals have been met. The polls were correct, and we took it back. We’re OK. Relax. Everything’s fine. The only thing left is to watch it on TV tonight. Congratulations, and thank you.”
Schurick testified that he approved the robocall script, calling it a counterintuitive attempt to mobilize crossover Democrats. He said he did not know the required Republican campaign authority line would be left off — one of the charges of which he was convicted Tuesday.
His argument that it was political free speech, not fraudulent speech — which is not protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — was rejected by the jury.
He faces up to 12 years in prison.
BALTIMORE’S 49th MAYOR
Rawlings-Blake became Baltimore’s 49th mayor in February 2010 upon the resignation of then-Mayor Sheila Dixon, who plea-bargained her way to unsupervised probation and a conviction which will be expunged when she completes required community service and pays a fine imposed for her misappropriation of $25 Christmas gift cards intended for the poor.
She was also allowed to keep a combined $100,000 in annual city and state pensions.
During the mayoral campaign for Rawlings-Blake’s seat this past summer, Dixon told Voice of Baltimore she plans to run for reelection in 2015. [Check out the exclusive VoB story on the spectre of her running again in four years by clicking here.]
In her inaugural address Tuesday, Blake pledged to grow the city’s population by some 25,000 residents over the next decade, promising to focus on the “fundamental rights” of Baltimore’s families and businesses.
“To get Baltimore growing again, it is more important than ever for each of us to make tough choices,” she said, explaining that, “We must focus on the fundamentals and do them well or face the prospect of trying to do everything — most of it poorly.
“Government alone cannot deliver each and every one of these rights,” she declared. “These are rights that we must demand for our own families, neighborhoods, and businesses — rights that government must honor and cherish and that everyone must agree to pitch in and do their part to protect.
PROPERTY TAXES BECAME A BURDEN
“The sad truth,” she added, “is that too many good families and businesses left our city because our government and our society, together, worked too slowly to achieve these rights or spent scarce resources on other things — all while the property taxes intended to pay for them became a greater burden.
“If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Here is the absolute truth: to get Baltimore growing again, it is more important than ever for each of us to make tough choices.”
Promising to be “tough and creative,” she concluded by declaring:
“When something is wrong, in the government or in the community, we will say so.
“When something is broken, we will fix it.”
However, “when something works, we will show we believe in it by making it stronger.”
Asserting that “a shrinking city simply cannot stand,” she pledged that she would “do things differently, smarter, and together” with the electorate.
“That means investing more in what’s important by reducing spending on the less important,” she declared.
“And having the courage to acknowledge the difference.”
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org
FOR DETAILS ON COURT CLERK CONAWAY’S ALTERCATION WITH BLOGGER ADAM MEISTER, CLICK HERE.
