There were tears and standing ovations, sadness and jokes, self-pity and mutual praise, but none of the controversy that marked the last two years, as Comptroller William Donald Schaefer on Wednesday attended his last Board of Public Works meeting with outgoing Gov. Robert Ehrlich. Both men were defeated in re-election bids.
“I hope I go out on a positive note,” said Schaefer, 85, ending a 50-year career in public office. “I made many, many errors,” but “I don?t regret what I did, but I do regret that I lost.” Yet a few minutes later, the sometimes volatile Schaefer said, “I wish I hadn?t done some of the things I did.”
Schaefer also indulged in some of his famous self-pity, talking about how he was going off “my lonely little room” and cry, while he ate a TV dinner by himself. “It sort of makes me a little sad today,” he said.
The Governor?s Reception Room was packed with hundreds who had come to witness the final act of what was often the best show in the capital ? Schaefer playing himself. Many in the audience had worked with or for Schaefer for years, and there were moist eyes on many of closest staff for whom the reality was finally sinking in that the man who had been Baltimore City mayor, governor and then comptroller was ending his career.
“I was the luckiest man in the world,” Schaefer said.
Schaefer, who never married and has no siblings or children, called the governor “young man” and “son,” heaping praise on him as the governor did in return.
Schaefer described Ehrlich as “straightforward, honest … absolutely straight, … never looking out for himself. … I never had to look around to see what was underneath the table.”
