Dan Rodricks: Why two elected officials support Sheila Dixon over Mayor Brandon Scott | STAFF COMMENTARY

I asked Sandy Rosenberg, the longtime state delegate, why he thinks voters should give Sheila Dixon, a former Baltimore mayor who left office in disgrace 14 years ago, a second chance at running city government.

Answer: Under Mayor Brandon Scott, city agencies have been either slow or unresponsive to community needs and to Rosenberg’s requests for help for constituents.

That’s not good. Providing reliable city services is a fundamental function of government. Has the delegate ever discussed that problem with Scott?

“No, I have not,” Rosenberg said. “He has to know or should know, and if he doesn’t know, that’s indicative of the problem.”

OK. What else? Is there another reason why Democratic voters should dump Scott in May’s primary election and go with Dixon?

“Speeding tickets on the [Jones Falls Expressway],” Rosenberg said. “Forty percent of [speeding fines] are uncollected.”

That doesn’t sound good. But it also strikes me as glass-half-empty thinking. If 60% of fines from the speed cameras on the JFX are being paid, that’s better than the reported average of 51% for the rest of the city and a decent collection rate when you consider that the city doesn’t have legal authority to boot cars with unpaid tickets from traffic cameras.

As mayor, Sheila Dixon would have the same problem.

Look now, I am not here to defend Brandon Scott. (He will do that himself in my next column.)

I’m trying to figure out why Rosenberg, a respected state delegate, and Eric Costello, a third-term Baltimore city councilman, would want to fire the mayor after one term.

Mayors usually get credit when the number of homicides drop, as they did significantly in Baltimore last year. Plus, Scott’s staff appears to have quelled the near-hysteria over squeegee guys with a plan that combined zero tolerance with purposeful outreach to the squeegee-wielding boys and young men who for years tried to make a few bucks from motorists at busy intersections.

Those good trends do not seem to matter, on balance, to Rosenberg; he says he “enthusiastically” endorses Dixon because he believes she will be a better manager of city agencies.

Costello, sounding a similar theme, says city services have been “horrifically managed” by the Scott administration. He says he hears complaints about them everywhere he goes.

When he first arrived in Baltimore in 2007, Dixon was mayor and, Costello says, parks were cleaner, trash and recycling pickups were both weekly, and the public generally felt safer.

“This administration is dysfunctional beyond belief,” says Costello. “We have very complicated challenges that require a disciplined strategy and collaboration, and yet this is an administration that can’t pick up your recycling every week.”

The recycling schedule has been a flash point between the council and the Scott administration. Pickups went from weekly to biweekly during the pandemic and remain that way. The administration says recycling should be restored to weekly collections early this year, depending on the arrival of 30 new trucks and adequate staffing.

Here are other reasons Costello gave for parting ways with Scott as mayor:

CityStat, the data-based program for tracking city services, is “not what it was under former mayors Martin O’Malley, Dixon or Stephanie Rawlings Blake.” As a result, says Costello, Baltimore has ineffective city management and a lack of accountability for it.

Scott’s communications with council members are poor, particularly on issues pertaining to problems in individual councilmanic districts.

There’s been a high turnover of staff in the mayor’s office, with too many important positions — health commissioner, deputy mayor for public safety — left vacant for too long.

Scott’s director of public works lasted less than two years, then was rehired as consultant.

The administration mismanaged and misled the public about the E. coli contamination in West Baltimore’s drinking water over Labor Day weekend, 2022.

The Safe Streets anti-violence programs are “poorly managed.”

The salaries of the city solicitor and the public works director increased from $188,000 to $245,000 while salaries in the Mayor’s Office increased by 55% over the first two full budget years of the Scott administration.

The graffiti rubout service for residential property was eliminated and later restored while the same service for commercial properties still has not been reinstated.

The city forfeited $10.6 million in expected federal reimbursement for homelessness services.

Scott’s controversial financial deal with BGE for maintenance of conduits, some 700 miles of underground utility lines, is “the most outrageous thing in the world.” (Under the agreement, BGE is to pay $134 million over four years for capital improvements to the conduit, as well as a $1.5 million annual “occupancy fee.” Previously, the city maintained the lines and rented about 75% of the conduit system to the utility.)

The “cash” element of Scott’s squeegee strategy is “not fiscally sustainable over time.” (One of the administration’s solutions to the squeegee issue was to streer some of the young men to jobs, not give them cash to leave the squeegee ranks, as some have claimed.)

Homicides are down, but, says Costello, “the reality is people do not feel safe.”

Costello endorsed Dixon in November, saying, as Rosenberg did, that he believes she would better manage the city.

“I did not come to this decision lightly,” Costello says. “I genuinely love Brandon Scott. I don’t ever question whether he has the city’s best interests at heart.”

But he’s not voting for him this time.

Scott’s responses to these grievances will be published in my next column.