Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon delivered her first State of the City address on Monday, offering an ambitious agenda that signaled a shift in priorities from her predecessor.
While crime, education and taxes dominated her speech, the mayor said the city?s policing strategy in particular would be different.
“We need to get back to the days when officers knew the people who lived in the communities they patrolled, and the people in the community knew and trusted the officers,” she said to applause.
Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm, speaking at a news conference after the speech, endorsed the mayor?s crime-fighting priorities.
“We can?t just enforce, enforce, enforce,” he said. “We have to offer hope.”
Dixon?s speech was heavy on substance rather than rhetoric.
She proposed offering Section 8 housing vouchers for children with elevated levels of lead in their bloodstream to enable them to move to lead-free apartments. She also reiterated her goal to end homelessness in the city in 10 years.
The mayor said she would create a land bank to centralize maintenance and marketing of all city-owned properties. She also proposed a blueribbon panel to study lowering the city?s property tax rate.
To coordinate the new programs, Dixon said she would create three new Cabinet-level positions: a deputy mayor of education, an officeof criminal justice, and a deputy mayor of neighborhood investment.
Dixon acknowledged the breadth of her plans.
“I know that I have laid out an aggressive agenda for the first 10 months of my administration,” she said. “But I promised the citizens that I would be about the business of solving problems.”
The City Council?s reaction to the mayor?s speech was mixed.
“It was a great speech,” said Councilman Jack Young, D-12th District. “It?s an ambitious agenda, but I support [it].”
“It?s certainly ambitious,” said Councilman Kenneth Harris Sr., D-4th District. “But the devil is in the details.”
Councilman Keiffer Mitchell, D-11th District, who is opposing the mayor in the upcoming election, said the deputy mayor of education was a bad idea.
“It?s grafting another level of bureaucracy on the school system that is structurally broken,” he said.
