Comments (0)Incoming Mayor’s Tie With Jewish Baltimore
Incoming Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is already a close friend of the city’s Jewish community.
January 15, 2010Phil Jacobs
Executive Editor
On Tuesday, Feb. 2, Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will attend the Baltimore Jewish Council’s board meeting.
Two days later, Ms. Rawlings-Blake will be mayor.
Yet, with all the transitions and changeovers of power that have to happen, Ms. Rawlings-Blake will attend this important meeting, thus underscoring further her close connection to the Jewish community.
“We’ve had a 20-year relationship with her family,” said Arthur Abramson, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council.
Indeed, it was the Jewish Council led by Dr. Abramson that took Ms. Rawlings-Blake and her mother, Nina, a pediatrician, on a trip to Israel. Dr. Abramson was with the future mayor when she learned she had passed the Maryland Bar.
“She’s had a close relationship with the Jewish community and with the council,” said Dr. Abramson. “She always provided access as her father [the late Del. Howard P. “Pete” Rawlings] did. She always sought to advance the interests of the community. She’s been there, she has experience. She knows what she is doing.”
The incoming mayor, who will turn 40 in March, was first elected to the City Council at age 25, the youngest in the history of the city. She represented the Jewish community as part of the council’s 5th District from 1995 to 2004. She also served as council vice president from 1999 to 2007. She was elected council president in November of 2007.
She is preparing to succeed Mayor Sheila Dixon, who resigned from office after pleading guilty to perjury and being convicted of embezzlement last month.
A longtime colleague and mentor, Councilwoman Rochelle “Rikki” Spector joked at a news conference held by Ms. Rawlings-Blake, that she felt like she’s been her “rabbi” over the years.
The soon-to-be mayor already has a close connection to the Jewish community, with many friends and supporters. There will be very little need in terms of re-introduction for her within the Jewish community, according to Ms. Spector.
Ms. Spector said that Ms. Rawlings-Blake “was more than good to us as a City Council president. I have a comfortable prognosis that she’ll be excellent for my district and for the city.”
Earlier when Mayor Dixon’s case first went to trial, Ms. Spector said, “Fortunately I have a great relationship with Stephanie. In terms of serving my district, that’s not at risk.”
She said then that Ms. Rawlings-Blake’s elevation to mayor would be “seamless.”
Also, she said, “I don’t have to introduce Stephanie to important parts of my district. I am one of the lucky ones in this tremendous upheaval. We have a real supporter in the governor. I’d like my constituents to feel a little bit more secure. The heads have changed, but the friendship and support and familiarity with constituents is constant.”
Dr. Abramson said that he feels for her, taking over a city that is facing the economic issues of any major jurisdiction during this recession. “I’m fully confident she’ll meet the challenge,” Dr. Abramson said. “I met with her a couple of weeks ago, and she was asking me all of the right questions.”
He added that “Stephanie will be there for us when it comes to the security question. She has always showed ambition. I’ve always gotten along well with her. She is her father’s daughter.”
Dr. Abramson also said that the new mayor will have to build up a team of loyalists and advisers, and that she will have to make tough decisions on who goes and who should be brought into the city administration.
“You have to have people you can trust,” said Dr. Abramson.
One of Ms. Rawlings-Blake’s closest friends is Judge Chaya Karen Friedman. The two public officials attended the University of Maryland School of Law together.
“She’s very outgoing and quick-witted,” said Judge Friedman. “She’s a lot of fun as a friend. I consider her a close friend, and we share a mutual best friend.
“Service,” continued the judge, “is in her blood. She has a family history of service. Being a leader in the community? That’s kind of her destiny, something she’s always embraced. She is on top of the issues, and she has a great support staff. She’s ready for the challenge.”
In recent weeks, Ms. Rawlings-Blake has participated in the lighting of the menorah at the Park Heights JCC-hosted citywide Chanukah event. That same evening, she appeared at Congregation Shomrei Emunah for the dedication of its renovations and additions. Early in the fall, Ms. Rawlings-Blake was at Northwestern High School stadium to participate in Police Appreciation Day.
Judge Friedman said that her friend’s first priority will most probably be the city’s budget.
“Sheila was in the middle of figuring out the FY11 budget,” said Judge Friedman. “That’s what’s going to be the huge challenge.”
Ms. Rawlings-Blake’s familiarity with the Jewish community is already in place, said the judge.
“I think she knows the Jewish community. She has friends who are Jewish. She’s been to our events. Being the City Council president was a good preparation for her. And she has a very close relationship with Rikki Spector.”
Still, Judge Friedman said that the new mayor will need to sit down and have more of a “getting to know you” session with the Jewish community leadership, learning perhaps more specific needs and also hearing how the Jewish community can become involved to help the city.”
In a Thursday night interview with the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES, a busy day in which she held a news conference and took phone calls from well-wishers throughout the state, Ms. Rawlings-Blake said that she’s feeling a great deal of hope for the city.
“I’m strengthened every minute of the day,” she said. “I’m even receiving handwritten notes from well-wishers. We are a strong city. We are down, but not out.”
The incoming mayor said she learned a great deal about the Jewish community when she served it in the City Council.
“I was very lucky that the configuration of my district contained the Jewish community,” she said. “I learned so much about the Jewish community’s sense of community. Part of that was the bonus of working with Councilwoman Spector, and to have her as a mentor, to be part of her team from her district, and to develop a tremendous relationship with her. Since my dad has passed away, I’ve been very glad to have people like Rikki as mentors.”
It was Dr. Abramson who said that from the time she first served in the City Council, Ms. Rawlings-Blake had a strong awareness of the Jewish community’s concerns over security issues, especially in the post-9/11 world. This awareness, said Dr. Abramson, will follow her to the city’s top leadership post.
Ms. Rawlings-Blake validated those concerns in her conversation with the JEWISH TIMES.
“I’m keenly aware of the security issues,” she said. “I stand in admiration of the work done by groups such as Shomrim and Hatzolah. I wish we could spread the work these volunteer groups do throughout the city. Groups like Shomrim offer a sense of community that makes the city strong. And it makes for a pretty good flag football team.”
She was referring to Shomrim’s two years of defeating the Northwest Police District football team in flag football at the Nov. 15 Police Appreciation Day.
She added that her personal connections to the Jewish community are strong, describing her friend Judge Friedman as “fantastic. And Howard [Judge Friedman’s husband] is not bad either,” she said with a smile in her voice.
Attorney Nathan Willner, who is also general counsel for Shomrim, said that he doesn’t expect the new mayor’s “learning curve” of Jewish community concerns to be steep.
“She has a relationship with a lot of leaders in the Jewish community. Plus, I think she gets us. She understands us, and is attentive to our needs and is responsive.”
Marc Terrill, president of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, noted how sad circumstances must result in strong leadership to aid in a city’s recovery.
“The news about Mayor Dixon is disappointing on so many levels,” he said. “But progress requires leadership. And the quicker we move ahead by positioning ourselves with the talented people who wait in wings, the better off we are.
“In her years as president of the Baltimore City Council, we have enjoyed the partnership that we have had with Stephanie Rawlings-Blake,” said Mr. Terrill. “The City of Baltimore and the Baltimore Jewish community have a long, positive relationship that we look forward to continuing during the soon-to-be Mayor Rawlings-Blake’s term. Our focus now is the shared goal to make Baltimore a thriving and safe city for all of its citizens.”
Jon Laria, president of the Jewish Council, added, “The circumstances are truly regrettable. Mayor Dixon was a good friend of the Jewish community. Similarly the Jewish community has no stronger friend than Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. We look forward to an excellent relationship with Mayor Rawlings-Blake. We as a community are equally committed to supporting her and doing whatever we can do to help her succeed in leading our city.”
Or as Ms. Spector summed it up, “There’s so much to be done,” she said. “The drama is over, the uncertainty is over. Now we’ve got to get back to business. I’m in work mode now.”
Spector, Jewish Liaison Gardner React to Dixon Resignation
Phil Jacobs
Executive Editor
Less than two months ago, Mayor Sheila Dixon stood before a largely Jewish crowd of more than 2,500 people at the Northwestern High School stadium and received a warm reception.
The Nov. 15 event, called Police Appreciation Day, brought together citizens, elected officials, police officials, including Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld, City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and City Councilwoman Rochelle “Rikki” Spector.
Before the action on the football field started, involving flag football teams from the Police Department’s Northwest District and Shomrim, the all-volunteer public safety group, a great deal of planning went into the day becoming a success.
And a success it was, with more than $22,000 raised for the Police Department’s Mounted Unit.
One of the key people who made the day successful was Betsy Gardner, Mayor Dixon’s liaison to the Jewish community. Ms. Gardner, who has been off of work this week, learned of her boss’s plea deal that calls for her to step down on Feb. 4, when she watched the evening news. The mayor was convicted for embezzlement and entered a guilty plea for perjury in exchange for her resignation. Dixon will receive four years of unsupervised probation, contribute 500 hours of community service, and donate $45,000 to charity. If she completes her probation successfully in four years, her record will become clean, and she will receive her $83,000 annual pension. Also, no public monies may be used to pay for her attorney’s fees.
In an emotional news conference Wednesday evening, she thanked her staff.
Ms. Gardner was a member of that staff.
“I’m not feeling the best,” Ms. Gardner told the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES.
“But tomorrow will be a new day.”
Ms. Gardner has worked for five years as the mayor’s Jewish liaison, stretching back to Ms. Dixon’s service as City Council president.
“She wanted to make sure that the Jewish community had a voice in City Hall,” said Ms. Gardner. “Her agenda was heard in the Jewish community, and she wanted to make sure that issues were handled properly and with sensitivity. She was particularly concerned that issues regarding the Orthodox community would be addressed properly and handled in the right manner.”
Ms. Gardner said that because the mayor attended Northwestern High School (class of 1972) she already had a familiarity with the Jewish community. She said that the mayor made it her goal to get out in the community and meet various rabbis. Ms. Gardner added that one of the high points within the Jewish community occurred when she and the mayor met with the late Rabbi Herman Neuberger of Ner Israel Rabbinical College.
Councilwoman Spector was at a shiva house for her companion Oscar Brilliant’s late brother, when she learned of the mayor’s decision to resign.
“I am so sad about this whole thing,” said Ms. Spector, “because I have been so satisfied with the job Sheila has done as mayor. It is so sad that it has come to a point where she can’t be the mayor. But I’m relieved to know that it’s behind us now. We’re back in the business of knowing who’s in charge.”
Ms. Spector said that Ms. Rawlings-Blake “was more than good to us as a City Council president. I have a comfortable prognosis that she’ll be excellent for my district and for the city.”
When asked if she would want to be voted in by her colleagues as the new City Council president, Ms. Spector said, “I don’t want the job. I work nine days a week and weekends. I want to be accessible to my constituents. Where I’m at now is where I can do the best job for the citizens.”
On Mayor Dixon, Ms. Spector said, “I can’t begin to tell you how much she loved being mayor. She did the best job she could. Our business decisions were so much better under her leadership. I feel she was like [President] Kennedy in that she was cut off way too soon.”
Ms. Gardner said that the mayor worked hard to help the creation of an eruv at Johns Hopkins University. She was also helpful in having proper facilities set up for pre-Passover chametz burning.
“She loved getting the word out about Shomrim, because it carried out her vision of making the city a safer place,” Ms. Gardner said. “I think this is a sad day for the city of Baltimore and the Jewish community. The mayor’s heartbeat and every breath she took was the heartbeat of Baltimore. She felt it was her mission in life, and it’s a sad day when a person’s mission comes to an abrupt halt. I personally admire her and think she is a strong woman and I have loved working with her.”
Ms. Gardner said she isn’t sure if her job will carry over to the new administration. She said she hasn’t been approached as of yet.
“There is no doubt that she has done the kind of job she should look back and take pleasure upon,” said Arthur Abramson, head of the Baltimore Jewish Council. “She did her best to advance the interests of the Jewish community. I wish her well in the future. She was always there when we needed her. She and I may not have agreed on a personal level on everything, but she was someone who would always listen.”
In Her Own Words Stephanie Rawlings-Blake from her Thursday, Jan. 7 press conference:
“Many of you know me or my family, but some of you do not. Rest assured in the coming days, weeks and months, we will get to know each other better. I look forward to visiting with you in your neighborhoods, homes and where you work. I also pledge to give you my heart and my time so that we can protect our city and deliver essential public services. I also challenge you to do the same. Help our city in its hour of need. Be active and involved citizens. Give us your thoughts and ideas. Pay attention to this transition. Demand the best from your elected officials. You deserve it and I will work with you toward that worthy goal.”
About The Incoming Mayor:
• Elected City Council president in November 2007.
• In January 2007 she was elected by City Council members to fill the unexpired term of former City Council President Sheila Dixon.
• At age 25, she was the youngest person ever elected to the City Council.
• Represented the Council’s 5th District from 1995 to 2004 and the 6th District from 2004 to 2007.
• City Council VP from 1999 to 2007.
• Born on March 17, 1970.
• 1988 graduate of Western High School.
• 1992 earned BA from Oberlin College in political science.
• 1995 earned Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland School of Law.
• 1998-2006, an attorney with Baltimore Office of the Public Defender.
• Member of Douglas Memorial Community Church.
• Lives in Coldspring neighborhood with her husband, Kent Blake, and their daughter, Sophia.