Two-hundred-plus demonstrators calling for cuts to the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) budget, and a reallocation of BPD funding to other agencies, marched to City Hall Friday afternoon with several protestors painting “Defund the Police” in large, block lettering on Gay Street.

Protest organizers, including local grassroots group Organizing Black, said they set the time and place of the rally to send a message to the City Council as they began their virtual budget hearings Friday afternoon. Among those attending the budget hearing was Police Commissioner Michael Harrison, along with other officials.

“The police budget increases every year, and every year, there’s more crime,” Taz Gaines, with Organizing Black, told reporters as the street painting got underway. “Why are we still increasing funding? We should be taking away funding and adding it to education and housing. It’s not just about defunding the police, but reinvesting that money back into the city.”

Marchers met at Baltimore’s Central Booking and Intake Center at 3 p.m. Friday before walking the roughly 10 blocks to City Hall, where they met other demonstrators. Other groups partnering in the rally included Baltimore Bloc and CASA.

Throughout the past 30 years, the BPD’s budget has tripled while Baltimore City Recreation & Parks funding has remained nearly flat.

According to a 2017 Fiscal Year study by the Center for Popular Democracy, which was published by Forbes last week, Baltimore has the highest level of per resident policing, by far, of any large city in the country.

With a city operating budget of $2.6 billion that year, $480.7 million was dedicated to policing in Baltimore. That represented 18.2 percent of Baltimore’s total operating budget, which equates to $772—the highest level in the report by far—per person on policing, a figure more than double that of Los Angeles, for example.

Recent Morgan State University graduates Chrissy Okemkpa and Taylor Boykin attended the rally in front of City Hall. Both said it was important for them to be present given the recent protests against police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as well as the subsequent calls to shift police funding to other functions that benefit the community—which they believe is needed.

“It’s not enough for people to just be on social media and say they support something,” Okemkpa said. “We wanted to be here. We wanted be present. That’s how you show you support the movement and calls for reform and changes.”

She continued: “We went to school in the city. We’re both from Baltimore, and the city spends too much money on policing—we see it. There’s a lot of inequities that need to be addressed—public health, food desserts—and yes, police brutality.”

Boykin also highlighted the need to shift the police department spending elsewhere.

“Education definitely needs more money,” said Boykin, who mentioned a need for more recreation centers and after-school, weekend, and summer opportunities for city students.

Michaela Brown, one of the Organizing Black leaders, said the group is demanding that 50 percent of the police department’s budget be redirected to infrastructure, education, housing, health care, and social services.

She also said they were calling for the repeal of Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBOR), which can hinder investigations into allegations of police violence. Police supervisors, for example, may not question their officers for 10 days following an incident report.

City Council members met virtually last week to review the $3 billion operating budget put forth by Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young for the next fiscal year, which is scheduled for a vote on Monday. Young’s proposal would give the Baltimore Police Department a budget of $550 million, which is roughly 20 percent of the entire city budget and an increase of around $21 million.

Council members can negotiate funding priorities with Young and his administration, but they only make cuts to the proposal and cannot increase spending in any one area.

A perennial problem with the police budget is the roughly $40-$50 million that is spent each year on overtime. Police Commissioner Harrison said he is determined to do better, and he demonstrated that by decreasing overtime costs by about $5 million in the last year. He also eliminated vacant positions and generated savings through reduced legal settlements.

More cuts, Harrison warned, will “have very serious consequences,” such as longer response times and more unsolved crimes.

Even before recent protests, Young described the fiscal 2021 budget process, which goes into effect in July, as “incredibly difficult,” given projected revenue decreases because of the COVID-19-related economic shutdown.

“Every City and county in the country are facing difficult budgetary decisions, and Baltimore is no different,” Young said last month when he released his budget outline. “What sets us apart, however, is the fact that even in the face of financial pressures, our commitment to our children and families is rock solid. The budget I presented makes very clear that Baltimore values its children, older adults, and most vulnerable residents.”

Earlier Friday morning, hours prior to the march and rally at City Hall, other protesters met outside the South Baltimore rowhouse of City Councilman Eric Costello, the chairman of the council’s budget and appropriations committee, calling for him to cut police spending and redirect the funding to other urgent needs. Costello responded by phoning—and apparently expressing anger toward—a local parent of one of the photojournalists covering the protest.

Costello later issued an issued an apology for his actions.

Gov. Larry Hogan announced the easing of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions on Maryland businesses and some events during a late afternoon press conference Wednesday at the Maryland State House.

He announced that effective this Friday, May 15, at 5 p.m., Maryland will be lifting the state’s stay-at-home order and moving to a “Safer-at-Home” public health advisory.

Specifically, Hogan’s decision—the first phase of a broader reopening plan—means all retail stores and service businesses in the state may reopen at up to 50 percent of capacity, although curbside service is still encouraged where possible. In his statement, Hogan mentioned clothing and shoe stores, barber shops, hair salons, car washes, art galleries, and book stores as examples of businesses that may reopen at 50 percent capacity. Religious institutions may also begin to hold services at up to 50 percent of capacity, with outdoor services also still encouraged. All manufacturing businesses in the state may resume operations, as well.

“Marylanders will no longer be required to stay at home, but are strongly advised to stay at home, particularly older and more vulnerable Marylanders,” Hogan said in his statement. “If you can work from home, you should continue to do so. You should continue wearing masks in indoor public areas, retail stores, and on public transportation.”

Hogan said he decided to ease restrictions in the state based a two-week trend of plateauing numbers, in terms of hospitalizations, acute coronavirus cases, and deaths. As of Wednesday, there have been 1,694 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Maryland, with another 115 probable deaths. The number of hospitalizations has ticked down from its peak, but has remained above 1,500 patients in the state since the last week of April. Restrictions on gatherings of larger than 10 people remain in place.

“This allows us to cautiously and safely begin Stage One of the recovery plan,” Hogan said.

According to new modeling at University of Washington-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, COVID-19 deaths in Maryland are now projected to reach 3,799 by August 4.

“The fight against this deadly disease is far from over,” Hogan said. “But Maryland and our nation can begin to slowly recover.”

The governor added that, as the state cautiously moves forward, he fully understands that not all counties are in the same situation. The reopening allows individual county leaders to make decisions about their own jurisdiction.

As for Baltimore, Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young and Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski, Jr. issued on a joint statement Wednesday evening on the governor’s Phase 1 re-opening. Young and Olszewski said they intend to examine the new state guidelines before making any local decisions.

“We are taking a close look at the specific actions announced today, and we will determine our next steps in the next 24 hours,” Young and Olszewski wrote. “We acknowledge that this will not be welcome news to all of our residents. Individuals and businesses continue to make real sacrifices, and those sacrifices are preventing the spread of a deadly virus. However, rushing to reopen in our large, densely populated jurisdictions jeopardizes the lives of our neighbors and loved ones.”

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich already said the county is not yet ready to reopen. Prince George’s County, the hardest hit county in the state, also does not plan to begin reopening Friday.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser extended the city’s stay-at-home order and closure of nonessential businesses through June 8.

“We all have concerns,” Young said Tuesday morning. “What we want to do is be coordinated in our efforts, so that one jurisdiction won’t be doing something different than the next one.”

This article was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

A U.S. District Court judge is set to rule by Friday on an ACLU lawsuit that seeks to block the Baltimore Police Department from using airborne surveillance images via the city’s controversial Aerial Investigation Research (AIR) pilot program.

Three privately funded planes would fly over Baltimore, up to 84 hours weekly, for six-months under a contract between the Ohio-based Persistent Surveillance Systems and the Baltimore Police Department, beginning in May. The planes, equipped with a sophisticated 192-megapixel full-color camera system (named HawkEye), would capture images of people’s outside movements on Baltimore streets and sidewalks, as well as their own backyards, according to ACLU and police department legal briefs focused on the constitutionality of the program.

The city’s Board of Estimates approved the contract and pilot project now in federal court by a 3-2 vote three weeks ago. Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, who controls the majority of votes on the Board of Estimates, voted to greenlight the initiative. City Council President Brandon Scott, among those running against Young for mayor in upcoming Democratic primary, does not support the surveillance program—or “spy planes”—as the effort is often derided.

The stated objective of the initiative is to help the Baltimore Police Department investigate murders, shootings, armed robberies, and carjackings with collected surveillance images. Baltimore, which has witnessed more than 300 homicides in each of the last five years, is essentially serving as a test case for potentially similar surveillance initiatives in other cities, the ACLU says.

Baltimore City has become a constitutional battleground for national public privacy issues.

The constitutional and civil rights dispute coincides with the fifth anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death from injuries suffered while in police custody on April 19, 2015, with subsequent riots and weeks of protests. The following year, as city anti-police brutality activists protested a not-guilty verdict handed down for police officer Caesar Goodson, Jr.—the driver of the van in which Gray was detained—aerial surveillance was being secretly conducted by the same company and Baltimore Police Department.

That publicly undisclosed program, first reported by Bloomsberg Businessweek after a tweet inquiring about the strange constant circling of planes overhead, was halted in 2016 amid criticism of its secrecy and condemnations from civil liberties advocates who made the case that the system represents a sweeping overreach of surveillance that violates individuals’ rights.

The new effort has already run test flights to collect aerial imagery as part of the program’s restart, court filings show. But the BPD agreed to temporarily suspend any current flights while awaiting the federal ruling expected by the end of this week. Meanwhile, Baltimore City has become a constitutional battleground for national public privacy issues.

If sanctioned by the federal court, Baltimore would become the first U.S. city to formally approve and implement military-style technology known as Wide Area Persistent Surveillance in an effort to fight crime, likely opening the door for further surveillance programs in Baltimore and elsewhere.

“What happens here would set a precedent for what happens in the rest of the nation,” Jay Stanley, a senior ACLU national policy analyst, said during an ACLU virtual press conference earlier this month. “This is one of the biggest privacy issues I’ve seen come down the pike.”

David Rocah, an ACLU of Maryland senior staff attorney, went further, comparing the effort to those found in dystopian novels. “Baltimore’s spy plane program, or Wide Area Persistent Surveillance, is an Orwellian nightmare come to life,” Rocah said.

In a flurry of legal briefs, motions, and responses filed last week, ACLU and Baltimore Police Department lawyers argued whether such aerial surveillance violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, an individual’s right to free speech and assembly, and the Fourth Amendment—primarily the freedom from government searches deemed unreasonable under the law.

Under the proposed pilot, aerial cameras would collect imagery data up to 12 hours a day over “major portions” of the city, weather permitting, with “a resolution of roughly one pixel per person,” according to the BPD. Such images could be checked against other city surveillance technologies, including CitiWatch cameras, license plate readers, and a web of visual data police say could identify the suspects or witnesses present at a crime scene.

Police leaders contend today’s AIR pilot program would ensure privacy limits and transparency, partly via potential “robust independent” evaluations by Morgan State University, the RAND Corporation, and University of Baltimore.

Baltimore’s police department has a documented, long-troubled civil rights history. A U.S. Department of Justice report in 2016 found the BPD engaged in patterns of conduct that violated the Constitution’s First and Fourth Amendments, leading to a consent decree detailing reforms. Such reforms emphasize building a “bond of trust” between the community and police.

Erricka Bridgeford, co-founder of the Baltimore Ceasefire project and a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit, believes the AIR program would further erode community trust, and that aerial surveillance will hinder community outreach efforts. “[The police department] should not have access to advanced technology,” she said, that creates an opportunity “to violate people’s rights. Also, I think it undermines the work that good officers are trying to do in the community.”

On Tuesday, a Morgan State survey reported city residents’ widespread dissatisfaction with police.

BPD has said the pilot program would comply with the consent decree. Under the contract, Persistent Surveillance Systems will analyze captured images when requested by police for investigations into targeted, violent crimes. Collected images can be scanned backward and forward in time. The BPD says it will not conduct live surveillance day-to-day in coordination with the company operating the planes. That said, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael S. Harrison also has discretion to request data analysis under “extraordinary and exigent” circumstances.

“Though the program’s objectives to reduce crime and violence are laudable, the Constitution dictates that this all-seeing and ever-present ‘eye in the sky’ is not an available solution.”

The ACLU contended in its request for a preliminary injunction earlier this month that the program would create “the most-wide reaching surveillance dragnet ever employed in an American city, giving the BPD a virtual, visual time machine whose grasp no person can escape.”

The century-old civil rights organization said that “though the program’s objectives to reduce crime and violence are laudable, the Constitution dictates that this all-seeing and ever-present ‘eye in the sky’ is not an available solution.”

Baltimore Police Department attorneys have countered by citing past court rulings on aerial photography use in investigations, most from the 1980s prior to recent advances in technologies. In response to the ACLU suit, BPD emphasized program support by several local churches and a city “level of violent crime that has reached tragic proportions,” including 348 homicides in 2019. BPD called the aerial surveillance “simply a creative, technological assist.”

The estimated nearly $3.7 million cost of the pilot would be funded by Arnold Ventures, a limited liability corporation founded by Texas philanthropists John Arnold, a former Enron executive and hedge fund manager, and his wife, attorney Laura Arnold. Future costs or funding support remain unclear.

Former Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon, who is running again for mayor, supports the surveillance plane pilot. Former city police department spokesman T.J. Smith, former state deputy attorney general Thiru Vignarajah, and former U.S. Treasury official Mary Miller—all running for mayor—support the pilot program. The Arnolds have made significant contributions to Vignarajah’s campaign.

“It is not BPD’s burden to show that the AIR program is constitutional at this stage,” Baltimore Police Department attorneys argued in their filing, noting the city is already surveilled by police helicopters, speed and red light cameras, as well as CCTV, CitiWatch, and the private security systems in nearly every neighborhood. “Observations of public movements are expected in Baltimore,” police department attorneys stated. “It cannot be that the public recognizes the abundance of cameras potentially capturing their activities in the public thoroughfare and still maintains a ‘reasonable’ expectation of privacy.”

The ACLU says aerial surveillance that spans up to 90 percent of the city is unique and goes too far.

“Yes, you are traveling public roads, but this program tracks all of it on a widespread scale,” Ashley Gorski, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said in a recent interview. “The government can do this if it gets a warrant, but there’s no warrant that can be authorized for that kind of collection for 600,000 people in the city.”

“The government is capturing the whole of an individual’s movements,” Gorski continued. “They can capture everything you are doing, exposing the privacy of how you live your life, if you go to the pharmacy or a gay bar or an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.”

“[The government can] capture everything you are doing, exposing the privacy of how you live your life, if you go to the pharmacy or a gay bar or an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.”

On a broader legal scale, the court battle reveals how case law and U.S. Constitution interpretations often lag behind rapidly changing technologies.

Central to the ACLU’s argument is a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court case, Carpenter v. United States, which ruled that police access to a person’s cell phone location data without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. The Baltimore Police Department argues that cell phone tracking (via data generated when a mobile phone communicates with a cell tower) is not the same as aerial surveillance. Wide Area Surveillance cameras in general, however, have a range of capabilities, including the ability to capture higher resolution, zoom, and long-term real-time images, as outlined in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report.

Such technologies can also be used via drones.

The ACLU says it understands crime-fighting concerns, yet also sees widespread potential for abuse.

“The city is fearful, feeling like there are a lack of viable solutions to the crime problem, so people are turning to technology to be a panacea,” Gorski said. “But the costs are far too high.”

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J. Cavanaugh Simpson is a freelance journalist based in the Baltimore area. This article was supported in part by a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center. Simpson can be contacted via Twitter @JoCavanaughSim1.

No one has ever described  Jack  Young as an orator. Standing at a podium slapped with the city seal next to a basketball-size crater on North Collington Avenue in February, Young  takes all of 90 seconds to introduce his “Mayor’s 50-Day Pothole Challenge” before handing things over to Department of Transportation director Steve Sharkey.  

“One of my top priorities is to clean up this city . . . I encourage all residents to report potholes  to 3-1-1  so that  together  we can improve city roadways,”  he says,  reading from notes for the television cameras and promising to fill 5,000 potholes  in  just under two months. And that’s it, other than fielding a couple of softballs from the media. Which is not to say the man  who assumed Baltimore’s highest office after Catherine Pugh was  forced to resign over corruption  charges  is an individual of few words.  Grabbing a shovel, the former City Council president immediately starts chatting up the asphalt crew. 

To his credit,  Young later seeks  out the only neighbor on the block who turned out for this photo opp.  She  informed  him, of all things, that the city’s big street sweeping trucks came by  too  often—“four times a week”—often  leaving potholes in their wake.  Young had never heard this complaint before in  Baltimore,  and  he asked the woman if she spoke for her community. She assured him, in fact, she  did. (“I go to meetings.”) “Okay, we’ll move the sanitation trucks,” Young responds with a wry glance toward Sharkey. “I’m sure some other neighborhoods could use them.” 

Young  may not be the most gifted public official in front of a microphone. The  entire city can recite his gaffes—“I’m  not committing the murders, and that’ s what people need to understand”—but  no one can deny he has a sense of humor. Or that he doesn’t love the city and look out for its workaday  people. He  seems to have half of East  Baltimore on  speed-dial. 

“I could use him on my crew,” cracks one of the  Department of Public Works  crew leaders patching North  Collington. “Seriously, the mayor doesn’t put on any front. He’s the same with everyone.” 

The night before the launch of  the  pothole challenge, the University of Baltimore School of Law hosted a symposium:  “The City Charter: Does  It  Work for a 21st Century Baltimore?”  Former mayor  and current UB  president Kurt  Schmoke, Johns Hopkins University professor emeritus Matthew  Crenson, City Council president Brandon Scott, former mayor Sheila Dixon, City  Councilwoman  Mary Pat Clarke, and City Councilman Bill Henry, who is running for comptroller, debated potential structural changes to the City  Charter. It was wonky stuff ranging  from  ranked primary voting to changes in the makeup of the Board of Estimates. Some of the proposals have been introduced before the City Council and could ballot referendums this fall.

Young was not there. Nor was he  really  missed. The panel discussion thing isn’t his strength. If Baltimore voters decide in June they want  Young in office for the next four years, it won’t be because of his  strong debate  performances, bold vision, or  charisma. But because they want someone who will listen  and fill their potholes.    

His ascendance to the mayor’s office has been anything but jackrabbit fast. Or likely.

Bernard C. “Jack”  Young got his nickname because he was as quick as a  jack rabbit  as a kid. It stuck, even if it did eventually get shortened. “I  had to have it legally changed to get ‘Jack’ listed on the ballot because people don’t  know  me by anything else,” he says  with a  smile  at  his campaign headquarters at the corner of North Charles Street and North Avenue. He is 65 years old, married for 40 years, father of two, grandfather to four, and proud product of Old Town.

One of 10 kids born and raised by a blue-collar dad and stay-at-home mom (who is 91 today), he delivered the  News-American  and worked in a  local  supermarket as a teenager. He did not attend college, but  instead went to  work  first for the DPW at the Sisson Street dump—“the smell gets to  you”—and then got jobs  in the cafeteria and mailroom at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.  Eventually, he moved over to radiology, first as a file clerk, later advancing to an administrative post where he oversaw the department’s transition from film to digital imaging.  Not that he was always happy as an East Baltimore employee with the way he was treated by Hopkins’  higher-ups.

His  ascendance to the city’s highest office has been anything but  jackrabbit fast. Or likely.  

The similarities between  Young and  Clarence “Du” Burns,  the last mayor to come out of East  Baltimore, are  remarkable. Like  Young , the self-made “Du”  did not attend college, was  known  by his one-syllable nickname, and rose to office from the City Council president’s chair when William Donald Schaefer won the governor’s race. Constituent service was more than a matter of pride to  Burns;  like  Young,  it was in his  lifeblood. Both  loved the City Council, its craziness, daily battles, and real human contact, without the security detail.  Both  started out slowly as  interim mayor and were initially  homesick for their old job. 

Young, however, seems to have gotten his feet underneath him  quicker  than Burns, and has appeared more intent on utilizing the full potential of the city’s  powerful mayoral system. It’s not a coincidence that Young’s first involvement in city politics was handing out flyers for Burns to earn a few bucks. He knew  him  from Dunbar High School, where he went and where  Burns worked as a locker room attendant.

“Du talked to us about getting things done for people,”  Young says, explaining his inspiration for getting into politics more formally in the late 1980s, when he pulled night and weekend duty on the staff of then-City Council president Clarke. “You  could see not all politicians did that, but  that’s  what I wanted to do.”  Young then ran for a state committee position, which he eventually won.

At  42, he was tapped by the establishment Democratic powers-that-be—the start of so many political careers in Baltimore—to fill a City Council seat vacated by Anthony Ambridge in the spring of 1996. He won the seat in his  own right that fall, before much of  the  current City Council had  finished high school. 

Young hasn’t lost an election since. He has spent decades now showing up at neighborhood association meetings, writing down phone numbers, and keeping his word with constituents. (The  notable exception, of course, is  that he  said he  would not seek election for the mayor’s office after assuming the job on an interim basis.) Even as mayor,  Young is still  plugged in—perhaps too plugged in—to the day-to-day concerns of average Baltimoreans. Among everything else  going on in the city, he remains  a walking 3-1-1 call center. (Over the course of an hour-and-a-half interview, he showed off  a recent photo of an illegal trash dump texted by a voter, a crime tip from a concerned citizen, and a phone call from  a  contractor looking for temporary workers.) 

“He  is basically a  moderate,  politically,”  says  Clarke,  referring to  Young’s general policy  leanings, “but when it comes to people in  pain,  he  is a left-wing progressive.”  

He still has his  Dunbar High School I.D. and has  been the  de facto  Mayor of East Baltimore for years. 

“I paid  Jack  $2,000 a year as a staffer while his ‘real job’ was still as a clerk at Johns Hopkins, and he worked tirelessly for me on going to meetings and doing constituent service,” says Clarke, who has endorsed  Young.  “He’d pass on issues to our office and he followed up, making sure they were being taken care of,”  she  recalls with a chuckle. “If not, he wanted to  know  why.” 

In the end, his focus inevitably comes back to two things: “Crime and grime.”

When  Martin O’Malley left Baltimore for the  Governor’s Mansion in 2007, his departure set in motion a game of musical chairs at City Hall that shows no end in sight. To recap: then-City Council president Sheila Dixon assumed O’Malley’s job as mayor. Dixon then backed Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for City Council president. (For what it’s worth, Dixon  admits  Young had the backing among fellow members to become council president at the time, but she asked him to step aside so she could fulfill a promise made to Rawlings-Blake’s late father, Howard “Pete” Rawlings, the respected former  chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee in the House of Delegates.) 

Three short years  later,  when Dixon resigned after pleading guilty to stealing gift cards intended for impoverished families, Rawlings-Blake moved up the ladder and became mayor.  But instead of supporting  Young  to replace her as City Council president, she put  forward  her own candidate to take her position.  This time,  knowing he had the backing of the majority of council members, he played his hand.  Young says his relationship with Rawlings-Blake,  who chose not to run for reelection in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death and the subsequent  uprising, was never the same. He’d  made room for her  to skip the line, but didn’t return the favor. “I felt betrayed,” Young says. “I did. I’d been a team player.” 

Pugh, as if anyone needs a reminder,  resigned last May.  She  was recently sentenced to three years over fraud and tax evasion charges related to her  Healthy Holly children’s book  scandal,  and  here we are.  For those counting, that’s four mayors in the past 10 years with a good chance of a fifth new mayor winning the primary election later this month.  We all know Sheila Dixon happens to be running again as well.

For months after Pugh’s resignation,  Young maintained that he was only a placeholder and would not run for a  full  term. He sounded sincere, but it was a shaky promise all the same. Meanwhile, the musical chairs has continued.  Young did everything he could to hand the City Council president’s keys to ally Sharon Green Middleton. But he lost a  hard-fought backroom battle to  35-year-old Brandon Scott, who pulled the  young City Council  his way.

Naturally, Scott  used his new platform to  launch  his own bid for  mayor. It’s a crowded field of, get ready, 24 in the Democratic  primary, with at least a half-dozen viable candidates and several others capable of grabbing votes.  Political appointments to vacant seats may still be handled the old-fashioned way—with a combination of patronage and arm-twisting—but gone are the days when  Young was coming up and the local Democratic clubs decided who could run for office and  who needed to wait their turn. 

Initially, this year’s Democratic primary  looked like it would shape up along similar lines to  the 1987  race when Burns faced a  young, rising star named Kurt  Schmoke.  Young, it was thought early on, would need  all of his nearly $1-million war chest to stave off a challenge from Scott. “There was the perception that  Du  was part of the older establishment and  Schmoke  would make  the  public schools  his priority, which Schaefer had largely ignored,” says  Crenson, the retired Hopkins professor and author of  Baltimore: A Political History. “In many ways, there is the same perception of Jack, now, being part of the older establishment.”

For  Young,  that  means it’s a challenge  to run on experience given the record  of corruption and dysfunction in City Hall, including now the comptroller’s office, the police department,  DPW, DOT,  and  Office  of Information and Technology—all  beset by mismanagement, scandal, and leadership turnover in recent years. 

But then the race splintered in to  pieces. 

In an early March Sun/UB/WYPR poll, four candidates—former Mayor Dixon (16 percent), Scott (10 percent) former state Deputy Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah (10 percent), and former police spokesman T.J. Smith (9 percent) were all grouped close to the five-point margin of error. Well-funded new candidate Mary Miller, a former T. Rowe Price executive and Obama administration treasury official, came in fifth (7 percent), followed by Young (6 percent), and state Sen. Mary Washington (5 percent). Washington, a progressive leader in the General Assembly, has since dropped out of the race, saying she intended to devote her efforts to serving her constituents during the coronavirus pandemic.

Each candidate essentially has  a  narrow  lane.  Vignarajah, the former prosecutor, promises to “stop the bloodshed” in his television ads.  Scott promotes a more holistic agenda, including looking at all city expenditures through  a racial equity lens. Dixon admits to making “a mistake” and says  the city was safer and moving forward under her tenure.  Smith,  personable  and polished on camera,  says he understands how to reform the police department.  

In addition,  a well-funded new candidate,  Mary Miller, a former T. Rowe Price executive and Obama  administration  treasury official, has thrown her hat in the ring.  

Pugh won the  Democratic primary in  2016,  and,  for all intents and purposes, the  mayorship,  with just 36 percent of the vote.  This month, there  is a good  chance that  the  future mayor may win office with less than 25 percent. Whoever  does get voted in, victory will come with more skepticism than mandate. 

For his part,  Young admits  that  he ran himself ragged after Pugh  first took sick leave and then resigned. (Loyal to the end, he still calls her  a  friend.)  He overcompensated, he says, trying to keep up the appearance that the city’s basic functioning, such as it is, wouldn’t come to a halt.  That said,  Young possesses unique and instinctive, if  underrated, political skills. Close observers of City Hall  dynamics  marvel at his ability to reward allies and punish foes. (Recall,  for example,  how  he  removed former City  Council woman  Rikki Spector  from most of her committee assignments after she voted against two of his bills.)

His aforementioned gaffes—he linked climate change to volcanic eruptions, or vice versa, it wasn’t exactly clear, at a   mayoral forum—also tend to overshadow genuine accomplishments.  (More recently, he urged residents to stop shooting each other because the city is going to need all its hospital beds to deal with the corona virus). He  established the city’s Children and  Youth Fund  and opened local  recreation  centers on Saturdays for the first time since the 1970s. He also helped break the logjam of legislation and lawsuits around  Pimlico  and the Preakness Stakes, which now look like they will remain in town. 

Young also  bristles at the contention by some that he doesn’t possess the idea s to move the city forward. That said, in the end, his focus inevitably comes back to two things. 

“Crime and grime,” he says. 

Whether voters, even those who  know  him well, give him four years  in charge to tackle those things is an open question.  With primary date now pushed back to June 2, the spread of Covid-19 virus does provide Young, who has requested the National Guard deploy in the city to provide humanitarian assistance in partnership with local agencies, an opportunity to demonstrate crisis management and leadership ability.

On a recent late afternoon,  the dozen-plus folks waiting outside the  Henderson-Hopkins  elementary  school  for a bus to Annapolis on Baltimore Day—a chance for voters to see their delegation in action—each  said they knew  Young. Almost all had met him more than once  over the years. To a person, they expressed their appreciation for Young  stepping up in wake of Pugh’s resignation. None, however, were  committed to voting for him.  Most said they were undecided. 

“It’s just time for someone  younger,” says  one senior woman, a member of the Berea community association. 

Her friend, also a member of the Berea association, thought  Young hadn’t had enough of  an  opportunity to make an impact yet as mayor. “I’m not saying I’m going to vote for him, though,” she adds. 

If Baltimoreans felt  the city was humming along , Young’s chances of winning a full term would  be better. 

A  Democratic insider, who admires  Young, put it this way: “If  you  need someone to put their finger in a dike,  Jack’s  your guy,” he says. “I’m just afraid  Jack’s going to run out of fingers.” 

Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has been charged with 11 counts of wire fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy by federal prosecutors, who allege in a 34-page indictment released Wednesday morning that the former politician was involved in a long-running, corrupt enterprise involving sales of her self-published children’s book series, Healthy Holly.

After weeks of mounting pressure, Pugh resigned her office in May 2019 following revelations first reported by The Baltimore Sun that she made hundreds of thousands of dollars from sales of her children’s book to the University of Maryland Medical System, where she was a longtime board member. It’s been alleged that $800,000 from book sales to a variety of nonprofits and foundations—including Kaiser Permanente and Associated Black Charities—with business, or potential business, before the city and state was funneled through her Health Holly limited liability company.

Pugh, who initially called the investigation “a witch hunt,” stepped down after the FBI raided her two homes and City Hill office, and the City Council put forth a charter amendment to make it possible to remove a mayor from office.

From November 2011 to March 2019—a time period that includes when Pugh served in the state senate—federal prosecutors allege the 69-year old Baltimore politician, most notably along with legislative aid Gary Brown, Jr., “did knowingly devise” a scheme to defraud purchasers of Health Holly books. The allegations claim that Pugh used the proceeds of sales to promote her political career, fund her mayoral election campaign, and enrich herself—including buying and renovating her house, and paying down $40,000 in credit card and home equity loan debts.

Pugh is scheduled to appear for arraignment in U.S. District Court in Baltimore before U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow on Nov. 21. She is also expected to turn herself in to the U.S. Marshals prior to the afternoon hearing in federal court.

“Our elected officials must place the interests of the citizens above their own,” United States Attorney Robert K. Hur said in a statement announcing the indictment. “Corrupt public employees rip off the taxpayers and undermine everyone’s faith in government. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and our law enforcement partners will zealously pursue those who abuse the taxpayers’ trust and bring them to justice.”

Guilty pleas from related investigations of Brown, Jr., and Roslyn Wedington, the executive director of a nonprofit training center where Pugh served as board chair, were also unsealed Wednesday. Brown has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, falsifying a tax return, and two counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Wedington has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the federal government and multiple counts of falsifying tax returns.

Central to the federal investigation, the indictment highlights, is that Pugh’s self-published Healthy Holly books—generally considered amateurish—were sold to nonprofits, foundations, and others with business before the city and state. Also central to the federal investigation are allegations that Pugh “double sold” books and did not provide actual books to entities that had paid for them.

Among other tax evasion charges, federal prosecutors allege Pugh reported her taxable income in 2016 to the IRS as $31,020 when it was, in fact, more than 10 times that figure. Among the related allegations is that Pugh wrote checks to Brown “to create false business expenses for purported outside services performed for Healthy Holly.” She is also charged with tax evasion in 2015.

If convicted, Pugh faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for the wire fraud conspiracy and for each of the seven counts of wire fraud; five years in federal prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States; and five years in federal prison for each of the two counts of tax evasion. It is worth noting that actual sentences for federal crimes are typically significantly less than the maximum penalties allowed.

Here’s further background: After Pugh’s mayoral election, Brown was found guilty of violating election laws for using his relatives to channel illegal funds to her campaign. Nonetheless, despite questions, Pugh did not fire Brown from his City Hall position after his conviction.

Pugh launched Healthy Holly, LLC, in 2011 to publish, market, and sell children’s books she authored. Since 1997, she also owned Catherine E. Pugh and Company, Inc., a marketing and public relations consulting firm. The principal address for both companies was Pugh’s residence in Baltimore, according to the federal indictment, which adds that Pugh was also the sole signatory on the Healthy Holly and Pugh Company bank accounts. Pugh did not maintain a personal bank account, according to the indictment, commingling her business bank accounts for personal and business use.

Pugh, of course, became the second recent Baltimore mayor to resign following a criminal investigation. Former Mayor Sheila Dixon, who assumed office in 2007 after former Mayor Martin O’Malley was elected governor, resigned in 2010 after she was found guilty of charges she had misappropriated gift cards intended for low-income families.

Current Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, the City Council president when Pugh stepped down, has assumed the mayoral duties in the interim. He also recently announced he will run for a full term in 2020.

Pugh has not appeared publicly to address questions about the scandal since her resignation, which was read in a short statement by her private lawyer Steve Silverman at a press conference at his downtown office

“In the best interest of the people and the government of the Mayor and City of Baltimore, I am writing to attest that, effective immediately, I hereby resign from the Office of Mayor, to which I was duly elected on November 8, 2016,” read Pugh’s resignation letter. “I am confident that I have left the City in capable hands for the duration of the term to which I was elected.”

Mike Miller, the longest serving president of the Senate in Maryland history, announced Thursday that he is stepping down after 33 years due to health issues. Miller, who will be 77 by the start of the next legislative session in January, has been battling prostate cancer for more than a year.

Cantankerous, charismatic, stubborn, and generous by turn, Miller wielded power in the Maryland General Assembly perhaps like no other before him. First elected to state Senate in 1975, he rose to president of the Senate in 1987, and ultimately dominated the state legislative process across the tenures of five governors.

At a press conference, Miller said he will continue to represent his district, which includes parts of Prince George’s, Calvert, and Charles counties while he continues treatment.

Baltimore state Senator Bill Ferguson, 36, was unanimously tapped by his Democratic colleagues—who hold a sizable advantage in the legislature—to succeed Miller as their leader. With Baltimore County state Del. Adrienne Jones rising to Speaker of the House of Delegates earlier this year—the first African American and woman to hold that role—the youthful Ferguson’s ascension marks a significant course change in leadership in Annapolis. And, perhaps, a shift in political power in the General Assembly by back toward the state’s largest city.

Jones succeeded deceased House of Delegates Speaker Michael Busch, who had held the position for nearly a decade and a half, in April. A former teacher and coach, Busch was considered the kinder and gentler of the “Two Mikes,” as Miller and Busch came to be known. Busch passed away in office at the end of the last General Assembly following a long illness and liver transplant.

Baltimore has lost notable sway in Annapolis over the past several decades as the city’s population dwindled. The combination of Ferguson and Jones now holding both top positions in the General Assembly could change that perception.

Miller was not just longest serving president of Senate in Maryland history, but also the longest, current serving state Senate president in the country.

He led the state Senate through the passage of a series of controversial measures in recent years, including a ban on the death penalty, and support for legalized gambling and same-sex marriage, the last of which Miller did not vote for himself, but also did not block from coming to the floor of the General Assembly.

In many ways, Miller remained a politician from a previous era. A voracious reader and student of history, Miller was also a protector of the state Senate and General Assembly traditions. In a profile of Miller several years ago, Barbara Hoffman, a former Democratic senator for Baltimore City and County, told Baltimore, “I think his legacy is to be a model for caring about the institution of the Senate more than any one thing.”

“He is the guardian of the tradition of the Senate,” Montgomery Senator Richard Madaleno, who arrived in Annapolis as a budget analyst in 1989, said in the same 2013 profile, describing Miller as the “pillar” of the Maryland Democratic Party. “He knows how to bring people together to form a majority to get an issue done, whether that’s through humor, through discussion, or through yelling.”

Miller also considers Republican Gov. Larry Hogan a friend. Miller knew Gov. Hogan’s father, a former Prince George’s county executive, and has known the governor almost his whole life—a relationship that has somewhat diffused party tensions in the General Assembly in recent years. Miller’s “steady presence and trademark humor will be deeply missed” as Senate president, Gov. Hogan said in statement. “I have immense respect for Mike Miller,” Hogan added. “For the past year, he has shown all of us what courage and determination look like as he faces a very tough personal battle.”

Meanwhile, local and state elected officials praised the selection of Ferguson, who is more liberal than Miller, generally considered a centrist or conservative Democrat. A former teacher and attorney, Ferguson has been vocal in his support for more public education spending as well as the recent Kirwan Commission recommendations calling significant funding increases for public schools. Hogan has called the Kirwan education spending recommendations “half-baked” and referred to the commission as the “Kirwan Tax Hike Commission, setting up a likely contentious battle in Annapolis during the upcoming General Assembly.

State Sen. Bill Ferguson

City Council President Brandon Scott called Ferguson a “hardworking public servant for the people of the 46th District and for every Baltimorean.”

“He loves our city and he loves our state,” Scott said. “I know he’ll honor our city as President. Senator Ferguson will ensure our greatest resource—our young people—get the resources they need for a quality education, regardless of their zip code.”

Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young highlighted Ferguson’s background in teaching and leading voice for increased funding for public education. “I know that he will be a passionate advocate for our children, and a committed partner as we work together with his colleagues in the legislature to ensure that Kirwan is fully funded,” Young said.

Maryland U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen said in a statement that’d he’d seen Miller Wednesday night at the Morgan State tribute to Elijah Cummings and that Miller insisted his doctors let him out of the hospital to eulogize Cummings.

“That’s Mike,” Van Hollen said. “Always there for friends; always there for Maryland. Mike Miller has dedicated his life to serving Marylanders and set the gold standard for true leadership in the State Senate. I was proud to serve under him, and to this day appreciate his mentorship and wisdom. His guiding hand will be missed, but I’m confident that Bill Ferguson will serve our state well.”

Baltimore mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young is expected to announce his candidacy for the 2020 mayoral race at 11 a.m. Saturday in Station North.

“I decided I want to run because there’s a lot of things I want to accomplish,” Young told the Baltimore Sun.

Since assuming his role as mayor after Catherine Pugh stepped down amid a growing scandal in May, Young has shepherded the city through a ransomware attack and often spoke glowingly as new recreation centers opened across the city.

A native of East Baltimore, Young has long been a proponent of programs for city youth. He served as president of the Baltimore City Council from 2010 to 2019, and in 2016, the charter amendment he put forward, which established a fund to provide funding for youth services—the first of its kind in Baltimore—was passed overwhelmingly by voters at referendum.

While it remains to be seen what impact a Young campaign will have on stump issues, it’s safe to assume that this is where he will place an emphasis. His biography page on the Baltimore City government website touts him as a “proponent of affordable housing and mixed-use development,” explaining that he “believes neighborhood development is the key to increasing Baltimore’s population, decreasing vacant homes, and improving its local economy.”

Young had previously said that he would not run for mayor, but reports indicate he started to change his mind this summer. Since stepping into his new role, he has embedded himself into the community at a number of events including the Shake and Bake unveiling last spring and the reopening of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Interestingly, in Young’s first few days as mayor, he made a trip to Annapolis to lay out his ideas and agenda, as well as to appeal to lawmakers for funding. During that trip, he said that his top priority was ensuring that the Preakness remain at Pimlico Race Course. Earlier this month, he got his wish, as a new deal was tentatively struck for massive renovations to usher the track into the 21st century. It’s a deal that is likely to be brought up among his key accomplishments on the 2020 campaign trail.

Young is set to formally announce his run Saturday at the Ynot Lot on North Avenue. In what is expected to be a crowded field, he hopes his name recognition and his time as mayor thus far will serve him well. Other democratic candidates that have announced bids include former prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah and Brandon Scott, who was voted City Council President after Young became mayor.

“I’ve proven I can run the city of Baltimore,” Young told the Sun. “I believe I’m the person to do it.”

Former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro III, brother of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, died at his home in North Baltimore Sunday. He was 90. The cause of death was complications from a stroke.

D’Alesandro III, affectionately known as “Young Tommy,” led City Hall from 1967-1971 and then surprised many by choosing not to run for reelection. His tenure coincided with a tumultuous period in the country that included the 1968 riots in Baltimore—which was already facing the effects of de-industrialization and suburban flight following the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Considered a progressive on the civil rights issues of the day, he was the son of Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., the longtime mayor and congressman known as “Big Tommy” or “Tommy the Elder.” When he was president of the City Council, D’Alesandro III met with King in Baltimore, where the pair discussed civil rights legislation before the council at the time.

“Tommy dedicated his life to our city,” his sister, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement. “A champion of civil rights, he worked tirelessly for all who called Baltimore home. Tommy was a leader of dignity, compassion and extraordinary courage, whose presence radiated hope upon our city during times of struggle and conflict.

“My husband Paul and our entire family are devastated by the loss of our patriarch, my beloved brother,” Pelosi continued, describing her oldest brother as “the finest public servant I have ever known.”

Current Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young said D’Alesandro III will be remembered for his commitment to Baltimore and the “important strides” he made while in office, including “creating summer recreation programs for youth, removing racial barriers in employment and education, and laying the groundwork for what would become the world-famous Inner Harbor.”

Current City Council President Brandon Scott said that, as mayor, D’Alesandro III “understood the need to bridge communities and worked to eliminate racial barriers in City Hall.”

“There was absolutely no communication between the races, none whatsoever,” D’Alesandro III told NPR in 2008, describing the time he took office. “It was a segregated city. It was a Southern city.”

After graduating from then Loyola College in Baltimore, D’Alesandro III studied law at the University of Maryland School of Law in the city. He also served in the U.S. Army for four years before running for office. He was elected to the City Council in 1962, and the president of the Baltimore City Council in 1963. When he ran for mayor in 1967, he bested fellow attorney and eventual Orioles owner Peter Angelos in the Democratic primary.

D’Alesandro III appointed George Russell as his city solicitor, and Russell became the first black member of the Board of Estimates. He named Roland Patterson the first black superintendent of the city school system and appointed Baltimore’s first African-American, Rev. Marion Bascomb, to the city’s Board of Fire Commissioners.

“I know he was disappointed by the effect of the riots on what we were trying to do,” Joseph Lee Smith, a black member of D’Alesandro III’s staff, told The Baltimore Sun in 1998. “But I never noticed him being despondent. In the three and a half years that followed, I thought he was very determined and effective in getting the poverty programs in place.”

D’Alesandro III was preceded in office by Republican Theodore McKeldin, considered a liberal, and succeeded in office by William Donald Schaefer.

“We were trying to do it all—improve schools, housing, community development, policing,” Kalman R. “Buzzy” Hettleman, an assistant to D’Alesandro III, told Baltimore magazine last year. “Drugs weren’t a big issue, but policing was. [Donald] Pomerleau was the commissioner, and he was a controversial figure. Gruff. The mayor was under great pressure to appoint an African-American police commissioner [which didn’t happen until 1984 with Bishop Robinson].”

Robert Embry, president of the Abell Foundation, had been appointed by D’Alesandro III to head the then-new Department of Housing when the ’68 riots broke out. “So-called ‘blockbusting’ was in full swing in the Northwood and Edmondson Village neighborhoods, and that was a big issue [at the time],” Embry told Baltimore in a 2018 story on the 50th commemoration of the 1968 events.

D’Alesandro inspired many newcomers to city politics, City Councilman Bill Henry noted in Facebook post, including Henry’s father, a then-26-year-old activist whom the mayor named his youth coordinator and placed on his senior staff. “Looking back on the mayors of my lifetime, ‘Young Tommy’ stands out as having recognized the importance of all young people, especially in terms of their ability to move society forward when properly motivated,” Henry said.

His decision not to seek reelection, D’Alesandro III maintained, was not based on his experience dealing with the riots that broke out four months after his inauguration. Rather, he said it was largely an economic decision—he couldn’t afford to raise his five children while taking home $695 every two weeks.

He also admitted, however, that he did not love the job and public life the way his father did. He spent the rest of his career as a private practice attorney while remaining an informal political advisor to several local officials, including former Mayor Martin O’Malley.

His father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., served in Congress from 1939 to 1947, and then as mayor of Baltimore from 1947 to 1959. His mother, Anunciata “Nancy,” née Lombardi, D’Alesandro was an effective political organizer and helped him become Baltimore’s first Catholic mayor.

Recently, a D’Alesandro family portrait—painted when D’Alesandro III and Pelosi were still children and their father was assuming office in City Hall—has been restored and hung in Germano’s Piattini, the popular Little Italy restaurant across the street from their family’s rowhouse.

Last week, Baltimore also lost Congressman Elijah Cummings, a close colleague of Nancy Pelosi, who passed away at age 68.

When D’Alesandro III married Margaret “Margie” Piracci on June 8, 1952, some 5,000 people turned out to witness the occasion at the Baltimore Basilica. The fire department had to turn even more people way and two women reportedly fainted.

According to reporting from The Sun, the pope sent his blessings, President Harry Truman sent a silver tray as a wedding present, D’Alesandro III’s father, then mayor, served as best man, and his youngest sibling Nancy, later Nancy Pelosi, was a bridesmaid. It’s been said that it was as close to royal wedding as Baltimore has experienced.

“His life and leadership were a tribute to the Catholic values with which we were raised: faith, family, patriotism,” said Pelosi, who grew up with her brother and family in Baltimore’s Little Italy. “He profoundly believed, as did our parents, that public service was a noble calling and that we all had a responsibility to help others.”

The upheaval at City Hall following former Mayor Catherine Pugh’s resignation last week continued Monday night, with now former 2nd District Councilman Brandon Scott earning a promotion from his colleagues to City Council president.

As the next in succession, Bernard C. “Jack” Young, the former council president, officially became Baltimore’s 51st mayor following Pugh’s departure. Pugh, who has not made a public appearance in weeks after taking sick leave April 1, came under fire after receiving more than $800,000 in questionable deals from her Healthy Holly children’s book series.

In the first few days following Young’s ascension to mayor, Scott was essentially locked in a 7-7 stalemate among his City Council colleagues with 6th District member Sharon Green Middleton to succeed Young. Scott, however, won over Ed Reisinger, 69, who represents sections of South and Southwest Baltimore, and Mary Pat Clarke, 77, who represents North and Northeast Baltimore, after reaching out several times to the veteran legislators over the weekend, according to reporting by The Baltimore Sun.

Both Reisinger and Clarke have said they will not be running for reelection in 2020.

Fellow Councilman Bill Henry is planning to officially announce his bid for City Comptroller in June. Altogether, it means more council seats will be up for grabs again after a youthful, majority turnover of the council in 2016.

At the same time, Scott, 35, has all but declared he will run for mayor in 2020.

One Democratic leader, who wished to remain anonymous, told Baltimore magazine the Scott has already signed on with top Maryland fundraising consultant Colleen Martin-Lauer, whose previous clients include former mayors Martin O’Malley and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. “At this point, I don’t know what he’s waiting for,” the Democratic official said.

Most likely, it was the opportunity to assume the mantle of City Council president, add the title and experience to an already solid resume—and bask in the support of fellow Democratic leaders in the City.

Scott, who grew up in Park Heights, graduated from Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, where he ran track. He studied political science and graduated from St. Mary’s College in Southern Maryland and then got his start in politics as a liaison in the office of then-City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

First elected at 27, one the youngest ever elected to citywide office, Scott serves as chair of the City Council’s high-profile Public Safety Committee and co-founded the anti-violence group 300 Men March. He also is a member of the Budget and Appropriations and Judiciary and Legislative Investigations committees.

Scott would be significantly younger than the average U.S. mayor—56, according to a recent study—should he throw his hat into the ring as expected. But the ambitious Scott would be the same age as Martin O’Malley, another ambitious former councilman, when O’Malley took office and actually possess a few more years of elected office experience.

“Brandon is hard-working, there’s no doubt about that, he’s smart, and capable,” said former 1st District City Councilman James Kraft, who was not making an endorsement, but expressed confidence in his former colleague’s ability to handle the city’s top job. “He’d also surround himself with smart, good people.”

Pugh’s reelection was by no means a done deal before the recent book scandal and FBI and IRS raids. It’s broken wide open now.

Former Deputy Attorney General of Maryland “Thiru” Vignarajah has announced he’s running. Most observers expect former Mayor Sheila Dixon to run again. State Sen. Bill Ferguson and former Baltimore Police Department spokesman T.J. Smith are said to be considering bids. State Sen. Jill Carter, who proposed the legislation that helped launch the Healthy Holly and University of Maryland Medical System investigation, and state Sen. Mary Washington are two more credible potential candidates.

Then there are folks like business leader David Warnock, former Maryland AG Criminal Division head Elizabeth Warnock, and state Del. Nick Mosby, who all ran in 2016 and could conceivably take another crack.

A potential bid by former NAACP chief Ben Jealous, who won the Democratic nomination for governor and recently bought a house in Baltimore, is also garnering a lot of interest in local Democratic circles.

There is always the chance that Young, who has said he’s not interested in running for mayor, could decide he likes the job of mayor and try to win election to the office.

And that’s just the short list.

We’ve learned quite a lot in recent weeks about former Mayor Catherine Pugh, who resigned Thursday afternoon amid a rolling scandal around her Healthy Holly children’s book deals and allegations of self-dealing and corruption. (Certainly more will come to light, too, in the wake of those FBI and IRS raids.) Less familiar, though not to long-time city political observers, is Baltimore’s new mayor, Bernard C. “Jack” Young.

As City Council president, Young assumed office last week as the next in succession. Here are the basics about Baltimore’s 51st mayor:

He is a product of East Baltimore.
Young is a 64-year-old, married, father of two, grandfather to three, product of East Baltimore. He got his start in city politics in the 1980s serving on the staff of fellow council member Mary Pat Clarke. At the time, the ambitious Young, who did not attend a four-year college, worked in clerical administration in the radiology department at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Young’s nickname came from his speed as a kid.
In a 1996 interview with The Baltimore Sun after being appointed to fill the vacated 2nd District City Council seat of Anthony Ambridge, Young explained he got his nickname because he was as fast as a jackrabbit as a kid. Later, getting older (and slowing down) it was shortened to a more mature “Jack.” He won election in his own right a couple of years later and hasn’t lost since—focusing on old-school people-to-people politics and constituent service.

Will he run for mayor in 2020?
Young has said he’s not interested. But that has not stopped some from suggesting he give it some thought. Note: his campaign committee has $600,000 in the bank, according to most recent statement filed with the Maryland State Board of Elections. Not a bad start should he change his mind.

He is a nuts-and-bolts politician.
Young does not claim the “progressive” mantle like many of his younger, newer City Council colleagues. He’s more of a flexible Democratic centrist. He’s not likely to talk about ideology or a grand vision for the city’s future, but in terms of water bills, DOT funding cuts, recreation centers, clean streets, and crime.

New mayor took action this past month.
Young was not been shy about making decisions while serving as acting mayor (when with the former mayor on sick leave for five weeks). He put several key Pugh aides on leave, got two top staffers to step aside, and fired three more while she was still out with pneumonia prior to her resignation. As City Council president, Young displayed a keen sense of how to utilize power. Now that he has almost full control of the levers at City Hall, it will be revealing to see his first policy moves.