Pee-U? Oh, no, not again

So y'all know that we have been in BMore for almost seven years, and the situation here keeps getting worse and worse.   Case in point, or Mayor's office.

In seven years, Baltimore has had two mayors and the specter of a third:

1) Shelia Dixon.  Shelia Dixon was elected mayor, she was very popular with the electorate.  Why?  Shelia is one of these people who develops instant rapport with the people she meets.  You really feel that she connects with you. That's good.  What's bad is that Shelia was found guilty of theft in office after she got caught stealing gift cards that were meant to be distributed to the poorest of the poor children in this community.   So Shelia had to resign in shame since she was convicted of a crime. 

2) Stephanie Rawlings Blake.  Steph is a brilliant woman, with the legacy of her father's lifetime of good works hanging over her head.  She is an Oberlin graduate, brainy, smart, but was terrible at connecting with people, and worse on TV.  Stephanie came to the job as City Council President, as per the charter, assumes the office of Mayor when the Mayor is unable to do their job or is removed from office.  And in this case, it was Shelia Dixon's conviction that brought Stephanie to the mayor's office.  But as Baltimore burned and rioted in 2015 over the murder of Freddie Gray, Stephanie was nowhere to be found.  She was not out on the front lines, she was not speaking to the people. She was spending a great deal of time getting her hair and makeup done.   So she removed herself from reelection, sensing certain defeat.

Now we have Catherine Pugh, a former state senator, who was doing what Stephanie should have been doing during the riots.  Catherine was out there on the front lines bravely standing up to the fear and the violence of the rioters.  Locking arms with Congressman Elijah Cummings, she walked into the buzzsaw and helped to bring people together.  And the city elected her mayor.

But since winning office in 2016, the clusterfuck that is Baltimore City Hall hasn't gotten better.  It's still a clusterfuck.  In some ways worse.  And department and division leaders are still making excuses for slipshod work.

INTO THIS came news, starting around March 15th that Mayor Pugh has been selling a whole lot of children's books that she wrote and self-published.  And that's fishy. 

Why? 

Each year thousands of children's books get published by major publishers and they go nowhere beyond their initial printings.  Unless you are an award-winning book author, even the cleverest kiddie books go into the toilet.  Remember Fred Gwynne, Herman Munster?  He wrote children's books - marvelous works with great art.  Anyone remember them?  Nope.

But Catherine Pugh is selling THOUSANDS of her self-published books about "Healthy Hannah".  But you can't get them at the nearest library, and you can't get them at your local or national bookseller either.  But she is selling them in bulk, by the box load!  Thousands at a time!

Where are they going?  Well the University of Maryland Health Center, on whose board the mayor sits, bought a whole lot of books.  Enough for the mayor to pay cash for a house in Ashburton, a traditionally black, middle-class neighborhood of very nice 1920s era houses.  She also rehabbed that house, but without pulling the right permits and with pending fines.  Yes, the mayor's people didn't pull the correct permits!

But wait!  There's more!

• Not only did she get money for that first batch, but she failed to recuse herself from Univerity business that impacted dealings with city hall. 
• Then the books that the UofMHC were found sitting in a warehouse until they weren't.  Then they reappeared. 
• Then Kaiser Permanente bought a load of books and SUPRISE they were awarded a contract to provide medical treatment to City Employees!  Better yet, it was the Board of Estimates - on which the mayor is seated by virtue of holding the office of Mayor - that approved the bid, with Mayor Pugh not recusing herself from that vote. 
• Now ALL of the mayor's deals are coming under scrutiny.  Acting Mayor Jack Young has asked that the deals she has struck over the past two years be looked at. 

In a "really?" moment while this was all breaking, the mayor developed pnuemonia.  And what hospital was she taken to?   University of Maryland Medical Center, of course.  A decent crisis management team would have said "Anywhere but there!"  But no one was thinking.   They took the Mayor, accused with insider dealing to the hospital that the dealing was happening with. 

Then in a Camille moment, the horse and raspy-voiced mayor made one last stand when she defended what happened in a presser with no questions.  From there, she placed herself on an indefinite leave of absence.  

City Council President, Jack Young, who also ran for Mayor in the last race, took over in Pugh's absence.  Now, did you catch that?  History repeating itself. Dixon out, Rawling-Blake in, Rawlings Blake out, Pugh in, and Pugh out with Young in.

Every day for two weeks its been one revelation after another. 

Meanwhile, "Rome is burning".  A Canadian racetrack operator is trying to strip the Preakness from Baltimore and move it to a track in Laurel.  We have gone through four chiefs of police in three years.  Murders are up.  City services are down. 

Honestly, if you think the shitstorm in Washington is bad, it's business as usual in Baltimore. 

And those of us who believed in Mayor Pugh are disappointed, demoralized and dazed. 

As for Shelia Dixon, she still thinking about running for mayor the next time office opens up. Lucky us.  Maybe not.  It would be difficult for Dixon to run in a race where illegalities are the topic of discussion because its an easy way to ask her about her own troubled past. 

But the best part???

The books that started it all?  Healthy Holly?  Poorly written and dialog like a Christmas pageant. 

What this city needs is a Lori Lightfoot, outside of the machine, to come in and put their foot down.

Baltimore: We're so damned proud.

1) Mayor Pugh takes leave of absence

2) Other insurers under investigation

3) Officials call for Pugh's resignation

4) It's All A Misunderstanding!

5) Investigations widening

6) Look Out, It's Shelia Dixon!