Brandon Scott sworn in as Baltimore mayor, addresses ‘public health emergencies’ of COVID-19 and gun violence

Former City Council President Brandon Scott was sworn in as Baltimore’s 52nd mayor during a small, socially distanced ceremony inside City Hall Tuesday, pledging afterward to disrupt the status quo in the city.

The business of administering the oath of office took only minutes. Standing alongside his parents and few others in the marble-floored rotunda, Scott pledged to defend the U.S. Constitution and execute the office of mayor without “partiality or prejudice.” The public and most media were barred from the indoor event due to crowd restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After signing a ledger, Scott delivered brief remarks outside, focusing on two “public health emergencies” facing the city: gun violence and the coronavirus.

Scott, 36, said the city was facing many challenges, including rising COVID-19 deaths and cases, struggling small businesses, a looming eviction crisis and a significant fiscal impact to the city’s budget that he said will require sacrifices.

He also spoke of “too many” lives lost to violence and overdoses.

“We cannot accept this as normal in our city,” Scott said. “We must also understand that these dual emergencies of violence and this pandemic exacerbate the underlying and obvious inequities facing residents of Baltimore. I am humbled by the task before us and I have hope, but I am not naive to the challenges we face.”

The event, which took 16 minutes from start to finish, was a marked departure from inaugurations past in Baltimore and what Scott’s team likely would have planned were it not for the pandemic. Organizers struggled to accommodate media and public interest in the young, progressive mayor without exceeding limits on gatherings issued by the city Health Department, which currently restricts them to 10 people.

Still, Tuesday was a monumental day for Scott, the son of working-class parents, raised in the Park Heights neighborhood of Northwest Baltimore. The new mayor has spoken often about being exposed to violence at an early age as police and drug dealers squared off in his neighborhood, and his inaugural remarks gave a nod to the streets where he was raised.

“Trauma and violence in our city is personal for you, just like it is for me,” he said. The city must change its approach to preventing violence or it will continue to lose Black lives, he added.

Scott is the eldest of three boys. His father, Alvin Scott, works for a family-owned heating and air conditioning company and his mother, Donna Scott, for a Giant supermarket — jobs Scott credits for allowing his family to work its way into the middle class.

Athletics pushed the future mayor through graduation in 2002 from Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical School, an alma mater of which Scott is a proud and vocal alumnus. There, Scott participated in the CollegeBound program, which pushes city students to higher education.

Scott graduated in 2006 from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a degree in political science. A year later, back in his hometown, he tried to seize on an opening on Baltimore City Council left by then Democratic Councilwoman Stephanie Rawlings-Blake during a political shuffle following Democratic Mayor Martin O’Malley’s election as governor. Scott wasn’t selected for the spot, but Rawlings-Blake offered him a job in the council president’s office.

In 2011, Scott was elected to City Council, representing the 2nd District. He became council president in 2019 in the wake of Democratic Mayor Catherine Pugh’s resignation from office amid her Healthy Holly children’s book scandal. Then, Democratic Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young assumed the mayor’s office, and Scott won the council president role.

During his time in public office, Scott has cast himself as someone willing to usher a new way of thinking into City Hall and to shake up the old guard. Teaming with a growing, left-leaning faction of City Council, Scott pushed through a series of amendments to the city’s charter that made changes to the city administration, gave council increased power over the budget and altered the legislative process.

He defeated Young, former Mayor Sheila Dixon and others in a June primary, then was elected Nov. 3 to a four-year term.

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