Kenneth Harris Sr., the 4th-district Baltimore city councilman, will announce his candidacy for presidency of the council this morning, a source close to the campaign said.
Harris will formally declarehis intention to run in a news conference at the Belvedere Market near York Road, in the heart of his district. Harris will be joined by Sen. Ben Cardin.
Harris? exploratory committee recommended on Thursday at a fundraiser that he seek the office, but the three-term Democratic councilman said he would not commit until Monday.
“I will make an announcement then,” he said Thursday. Meanwhile, “I have a lot to think about,” he added.
The announcement means that Harris, an often outspoken and sometimes controversial member of the council, will face off against current Council President Stephanie Rawlings Blake in September.
A native Baltimorean, Harris grew up in the city?s rough-and-tumble Lower Park Heights neighborhood. Raised by a single mother, Harris cited his experience as a teenager trying to avoid trouble when he negotiated $9 million to build new recreation centers ? a deal he made in exchange for voting for the city-financed $305 million convention center hotel.
In April, Harris initiated an investigation into the travel practices of the Baltimore Employees? Retirement System, the agency that manages city employee pension funds, after it was reported that board members were taking lavish trips abroad. The board eventually changed its travel policies to limit overseas trips.
He also has called for the Baltimore Police Department to transfer officers from specialized units into regular patrols, citing shortages of officers in his district.
After introducing a resolution in June calling on Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm to answer allegations that police officers were being forced to meet arrest quotas, Harris was stung by a letter from Deputy Commissioner Marcus Brown threatening to transfer officers out of his district.
Recently Harris has questioned overruns in the department?s budgeting for overtime, citing two consecutive years that the department has exceeded its overtime budget for overtime by millions of dollars.
Harris has been a rumored candidate for mayor, but insiders say a crowded field lead to the decision to run for the City Council presidency.
