Dixon becomes Baltimore’s first female mayor

Alex Dominguez

BALTIMORE — Sheila Dixon became the first woman to occupy the mayor’s office last week, taking over the remainder of new Gov. Martin O’Malley’s term and facing the challenges of a rising murder rate, a continuing ethics probe and a number of challengers for the seat.

Dixon promised to be a mayor who would solve problems, noting it is “easy to blame.”

“What’s hard is to listen,” she said.

As the president of Baltimore’s City Council, Dixon was elevated to the mayor’s chair after O’Malley was sworn in as Maryland’s governor, and has said she plans to run for the office in the citywide election in November.

Dixon pledged to make the city safer and cleaner, but did not mention crime, which had been a hallmark of O’Malley’s administration.

O’Malley was elected on a zero-tolerance crime platform but later faced criticism that police were targeting residents of poor black neighborhoods. The new governor also frequently clashed with Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy over fighting violent crime.

The city had 275 homicides in 2006, six more than the year before, and Dixon has said she will work to improve relations between police, prosecutors, court officials and parole and probation officials.

In her inauguration speech, Dixon said old ideas and long-held grudges should be left behind. She pledged to end homelessness and meet the housing needs of working Baltimoreans — including teachers, nurses and firefighters.

“We need you — I need you — to be part of making Baltimore a safer and a cleaner city. I am asking today that we put aside simplistic rhetoric and start working toward real solutions,” Dixon said.

The incoming mayor also said the city would live within its means and pledged to “do everything we can to ease your tax burden.”

Dixon said the “job is going to be one of the biggest challenges of my life, but I’m ready.”

“We know the challenges,” she added later. “What we have yet to demonstrate as a generation of leaders is the ability to put aside party, partisanship and petty differences to find common purpose.”

A Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Dixon has served three terms on the council and won two citywide races for City Council president, most recently in 2004. However, she faces a crowded field in November’s mayoral election.

City Councilman Keiffer Mitchell Jr., state delegate Jill Carter, high school principal Andrey Bundley and Circuit Court Clerk Frank Conaway Sr. are among those said to be considering runs.

Dixon delivered the speech in front of a large U.S. flag hanging between stone columns at the city War Memorial building. A jazz band played Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” as she took the stage. Women now hold the most powerful posts in city government — mayor, city council president, comptroller and state’s attorney.

The mother of two and aunt of former Maryland basketball star Juan Dixon, who now plays for the Portland Trail Blazers, is a longtime student of karate and former elementary school teacher with a master’s degree in educational management. She has also personally felt the effects of the city’s battle with drugs — her brother and sister-in-law were heroin users who died of AIDS.

Dixon is also the subject of a state probe involving city payments to companies employing her sister and her former campaign chairman. The city ethics board cleared Dixon of ethics violations last week. In October 2003, Dixon stopped employing her sister after the city ethics board ruled she was improperly hired as an assistant. Other city council members also had to fire relatives.

(Associated Press)