The Politics Meister

Mayor Rawlings-Blake rocked Sheila Dixon on Monday! Her speech was head and shoulders above Dixon’s speech from last year. The real question is if this Mayor can bring about the radical (for Baltimore at least) change that she spoke about in her speech.

The event started out in classic Baltimore fashion with City Council President Jack Young stumbling through his opening statements. The man is not a good public speaker. The Mayor’s mastery of her speech made his words seem even more lacking than they originally appeared. Young had a nice light suit on though. That was a positive I guess. Young gave the mayor flowers before her speech.

Since politicians have huge egos they had to introduce all the visiting politicians that were in attendance. Elijah Cummings, Curt Anderson, Melvin Stukes, Joan Pratt, union leader Glen Middleton , a firefighters’ union rep, a school union rep, a police union rep, Judge Holland, and Helen Bentley were all announced. Patricia Jessamy was not there. I was worried that with all those union people present that the Mayor would promise them benefits at the expense of the taxpayer. She did not even come close to doing that though.

The Mayor got down to business right away. The differences between her style of speaking and Dixon’s style were noticeable immediately. The mayor spoke in a clear calm voice. Her speech was to the point, short yet concise, and forward looking. She actually brought up non-fluff topics that could cause controversy! You can watch the entire speech here. After watching this speech one has to wonder why we were not embarrassed by the former Mayor every time she spoke. Yesterday’s speech was a breath of fresh air on so many different levels. It was a new beginning and a renewal of a kind of Baltimore pride that had been lacking during the Dixon years.

After the light business suit wearing Mayor thanked her benefactors (O’Malley and Cummings) she jumped right into a subject that Dixon had avoided- Property taxes! The Mayor is sending a signal to the citizens that she is very much aware of the fiscal problems of this city and that property taxes are one of the biggest economic problems many citizens deal with. It was refreshing to at least hear that this mayor cares about basic municipal economics and fiscal responsibility.

“$120 million equals twenty-two-hundred City employees or 55% of our civilian workforce.”

If I were her I would try to fire as many of them as possible in order to make up the impending $120 million deficit.

“Mark these words, remember them and factor them into our actions and decisions in the coming days: This $120 million deficit is brutal and will hit all of our citizens hard. I speak plainly and bluntly. If we sugar coat our problems, we will never rise above and solve them.”

The Mayor did what I thought she would not do, she straight up told us we had a problem that would be painful to fix. She even brought up the always hush-hush “pension time-bomb”.  He speech was not union-friendly! I was shocked.

“Chief among these sacrifices is pension reform for police officers and firefighters.”

Wow! Has someone from the Mayor’s office been reading this blog?

“Despite a deficit equal to a thirty-six cent increase on the property tax rate, if we work together, we can pledge we will not raise property taxes to fix this budget gap.”

Bravo!!!!

“Finally, I’m cutting the entire Mayor’s Office budget by 10%. We will do more with less.”

Has mild fiscal responsibility really returned to Baltimore? Please let the Mayor’s words turn into actions!

The transcript of the Mayor’s speech can be found here.