The 9th District empty seat saga played out inside of city hall on Tuesday and Thursday. I was there. Below is a complete summary of what happened on those memorable days.
Here are descriptions from Tuesday of what the hearing room looked like, Helen Holton, Robert Curran, Warren Branch, and Mary Pat Clarke. Here is a link to a Baltimore Sun story that was published on Tuesday. I think it is an excellent piece and that it would have put some pressure on the City Council to do the right thing.
Dr. John Bullock was youngest of the four candidates to present his case. I believe he is in his late 20′s. He is not from Baltimore originally and is a professor at Towson. Bullock’s opening statement was the most powerful I have ever heard at such a hearing. He basically called the City Council out and told them that he knew this process was fixed and that the son of Agnes Welch would be selected. He showed no mercy on Welch or the council. He mentioned that the 9th District has suffered from “years of political neglect”. He is a very good speaker.
Bullock did not shine during the question and answer session. He is not opposed to raising property taxes and he supports a living wage bill. He did not seem to understand that taxes are not the answer, but since most of the council members also do not understand that they kept asking about taxes and user fees and he kept agreeing to them. Since Bullock was first he did not get to prepare for any of the questions. All of the other candidates knew most of the questions they were going to be asked because they had already heard them when Bullock was questioned. A few council-people changed their questions but about 75% of questions remained the same throughout the process.
Abigail Breiseth was the next candidate to present her case. She was focused on education. Breiseth is a teacher and a friend of State Senator Bill Ferguson. She admitted that she did not know a lot about taxes although she said people seem to be willing to pay higher taxes if it is for the children. She kept coming back to education. City Council really can’t do a lot when it comes to education so Breiseth may want to consider another position. Breiseth was the only one of the non-Welch candidates who complimented Agnes Welch. It was an interesting way to appeal to the members of the council.
Breiseth is clearly intelligent and came up with some nicely worded answers to questions. Like all of the other candidates she said she plans to run for the 9th district seat in September no matter who is appointed this month. I think Breiseth will be able to mobilize a pretty strong door to door campaign because of her teacher connections. On the street level her campaign will probably resemble Bill Fergusons. The 9th District is a lot different than the 46th state level district.
Pete Welch was up next. He made all his supporters stand up. Many of his supporters were clearly older women who had been brought in just for this demonstration of support. Welch also provided the council with thirty recommendation letters. Many council members stated that they already knew Welch for a number of years. Welch named dropped his mother a few times and brought up examples of when he had helped constituents during her administration. He gave a round about living wage opinion that did hit on some important negative aspects of implementing a local living wage ordinance. He seemed to have a pretty good grasp of basic mathematics which is something many council-members do not understand.
Welch brushed away his gun and campaign finance history when Jim Kraft asked him about his past problems. Kraft also reminded the audience that he has worked with Welch for 20 years. Welch talked about how he is not rich and he could not afford to fight the cases against him. He says much of his CPA work does not generate a lot of money because he works with poor people.
Welch said that other people were exaggerating the problems in the 9th district. I guess this was his way of clearing his mother’s name and implying that a Welch could do a fine job in the 9th District. He said the 9th district had been around for 12 years although in reality the 9th district has only been around for 8 years.
There were two points during his time in front of the council that he completely lost his train of thought. In his opening statement he admitted that he had lost his train of though and in his closing statement there was a long silent pause. At one point Welch brought up a man named “Don Sutton” who he said was his “partner”, but then said was a “neighbor”. I have no idea who this guy is, but it sounds interesting. He also mentioned that someone in Florida tried to sell him a million dollar condo for $100k. Pretty good deal for a poor CPA.
Welch was definitely the establishment candidate. He dropped 9th District institutional names like Bon Secours Hospital, Tuerk House, and Food Depot. He talked about being a certified mediator. I assume he did this to prove he no longer has anger management issues. He said everything an establishment city councilman would say and I am sure this impressed many of the current establishment members.
Michael Johnson was last to present his case. Two hours had almost gone by and the crowd was pretty restless. Mary Pat Clarke and Helen Holton had already gotten up for long periods of time and Nick D’Adamo appeared to leave early. Johnson made an aggressive opening statement. You could tell that he did not appreciate Robert Curran’s statements to the local media. Johnson talked about how all the candidates could hit the ground running despite what some had said. He reminded everyone that any person could have run for the 9th district council seat in 2007 and given their time and energy to that cause. He was the only person applying for the job who had done this and he came in second place last time. I thought this was an excellent point and I thought he should have brought it up over and over again. He did not talk about it that much though. He was the only candidate there that citizens of the 9th District had supported in a past election. Shouldn’t their opinions mean something?
Johnson talked about unemployment, safety, and the appearance of the 9th District. He is opposed to raising property taxes. He offered to drive members of the City Council around the 9th district. Curran tried to challenge him when he brought up the 88 street lights that were out in the in the 9th district. Johnson mentioned how dark streets are places where crime gravitates to. Curran said the city already spent millions on street lights. Johnson then brought up how something was clearly wrong with that. He was the only candidate to talk about auditing city spending. He actually talked about something related to cutting spending! You have to like that.
Councilwoman Conaway only spoke once during the entire hearing. She complimented Johnson for helping with job issues in the Mondawmin area. I was surprised by her positive comment. It did not seem like any of the other council-people were giving Johnson an easy time. Johnson was politely combative. He said this should not be a high tech coronation.
On Thursday the Vacancy Nominating Committee voted on who they thought should fill the empty seat. I was there.
This part of the entry could also be titled: “The City Council screwed Michael Johnson”.
You can read other stories about this vote here, here, here, and here.
I arrived at city hall right before 5PM on Thursday. The vacancy nominating committee was supposed to vote on who they wanted to fill the empty 9th District seat at 5PM. A budget meeting ran late and was still going on when I arrived in the balcony area of the Du Burns Council Chamber. The budget meeting deserves its own post. Mary Pat Clarke demonstrated some incredible budgetary ignorance. Stay tuned for more on that in the future.
The budget hearing ended at 5:50 and you could tell Jack Young wanted to get this vote over with. There was no break. It was announced that the 12 council-member (Rikki Spector and Helen Holton were the only council-people not on the nominating committee) committee would vote after candidate nominations were made. I knew something was fishy at this point. They could have easily just had a vote where all four candidates automatically became the only people you could vote for. Since a candidate needed to be nominated Jack Young asked for nominations. Robert Curran nominated Pete Welch and Nick D’Adamo seconded the nomination!
How sick! The most outspoken Welch “fan” who happens to be part of a political monarchy of his own makes the nomination and the soon to be retired D’Adamo seconds it without any fear of future political ramifications.
Jim Kraft said he wanted there to be more than one option. He nominated Abigail Breiseth! Huh? No offense to Abigail Breiseth, but she appeared to be the least likely to win a 9th district election. I find it hard to fathom that the people of her district would favor her over the other three candidates. If the council selected Breiseth there would have been an uproar from the NAACP and rightfully so. Mary Pat Clarke seconded the nomination.
What did not happen next was the biggest embarrassment of the entire night. No member of Baltimore’s City Council stepped up and nominated Michael Johnson! Johnson is the only person out of the four candidates who has EVER received a single vote from a citizen of the 9th district in a real election. He came in second place with 1135 votes in the 2007 primary election in the 9th District. You mean to tell me that every single one of the members of the City Council felt those 1135 votes meant nothing?
Johnson and Bullock spoke the truth when they were interviewed by the council on Tuesday night. They called the council out and said that the decision had already been made. They were right. The council did not appreciate the truth being told in a way that rightfully embarrassed them so they paid Johnson back by not even nominating him. Of course none of the council-people who MADE A DEAL with Agnes Welch before she retired would have ever nominated Johnson because AGNES WELCH HATES MICHAEL JOHNSON. How dare someone run against Dear Leader Welch.
Breiseth was a good girl and played nice so she was allowed to play the role of the Washington Generals in this farce. Once again I need to stress that Breiseth was just a pawn in all this, she did not do anything wrong. I am sure Pete Welch is happy that this entire show might even give her some minor momentum and take away votes from Johnson in September.
So with only two candidates nominated the council-members would have an easy time explaining their Welch votes. Why on earth would they pick a inexperienced white woman with little city council financial knowledge over the experienced financially savvy (in many ways apparently) Welch? Kraft, Clarke, and Bill Henry ended up voting for Breiseth! Henry paused a bit before he voted. When Bill Cole voted for Welch he also paused and appeared, sad, uncomfortable, and disturbed. I don’t think he expected this scenario to take place.
Clarke later said she voted against Welch because of his background. That definitely was the right thing to say and she deserves credit for saying it. A part of me thinks she did not like him because he refused to support her financially crippling living wage idea.
The City Council will officially vote to fill the seat on Monday. Since the official recommendation is Welch that means Spector and Holton will also vote for him and he will win no matter what. I think it is possible since the inevitable is now obvious that the entire City Council may end up voting for Welch on Monday. It really does not matter now though. Robert Curran and his big mouth and Agnes Welch are the ultimate villains in this story. Robert Curran should be made to politically pay dearly for this injustice. Unfortunately all the other council-people have legitimate excuses because of the two candidate scenario that the committee’s procedures so conveniently brought about.
The vote itself would have only taken less than a minute had it not been for the imbecile of the council Warren Branch. Branch AGAIN felt the need to explain why he felt recommendation letters and emails of support were important. Branch is an embarrassment to Baltimore and I feel bad for anyone who has to sit through one of his cringe-worthy “performances”.
Curran and Branch should be targeted for removal and their opponents in 2011 should be supported. I will do my part. More information will be provided soon enough.
There is one positive that came out of all of this. Agnes Welch is gone!
Michael Johnson’s campaign page can be found here.
Adam is the most recognizable face of the recent resurgence in Reservoir Hill. He has appeared on many national and local radio shows, in several news publications, and at numerous events discussing his innovative urban redevelopment ideas and his unique lifestyle. Adam is a successful entrepreneur, community activist, and a local political guru who ran for city council in 2007. He is the founder and director of the TechBalt.com Buy a Block Project and BaltimoreHourly.com. His fearless local political commentary has rocked the local blog scene for most of this decade and he plans to take it to the next level in the next decade here on Charm City Current.
