The Christmas season, with its inevitable reruns of Frank Capra?s classic movie “It?s a Wonderful Life” coinciding with William Donald Schaefer?s final weeks as the state?s comptroller, got The Examiner to thinking.
What would Maryland have been like if there were no William Donald Schaefer?
There aren?t many parallels between Schaefer?s 50-year career and the life of George Bailey in Jimmy Stewart?s portrayal of a small-town businessman fallen on hard times. Facing financial collapse, Bailey considers suicide by jumping off a bridge and thinks everyone would be better off if he?d never been born.
An angel working to earn his wings rescues him from this fate and shows him how bad off the town of Bedford Falls would be if he had never been born.
Imagine if an angel showed the man everyone calls “Governor” what life would be like in Maryland without his guiding hand.
Baltimore skyline
Stand in Federal Hill Park by the Inner Harbor and scan the horizon to see what Baltimore would be like without the role that Schaefer played. No Science Center, no Harborplace, no Hyatt Regency, no World Trade Center, no National Aquarium, no Gallery Place. And farther in the distance, no Camden Yards, no Convention Center, no light-rail line, no subway.
In short, most of what defines Baltimore?s positive image on TV, in brochures and on posters and Web sites bears Schaefer?s fingerprints. No telling what other mayors or governors might have done, but many leaders wanted to keep the Inner Harbor as a park.
Schaefer set the model that has been carried on by his successors on the eastern end of the Harbor: the Marriott and high-rise condos stretching out to a revitalized Canton.
While Schaefer has intense mood swings and is sometimes depressed, as he was when he believed he “lost” the 1990 gubernatorial re-election by getting only 60 percent of the vote ? but, of course, he won. However, there is no sign that he fails to recognize his impact on the city he loves.
Angels by his side
Over the years, he has had his “angels” to remind him of the better side of his conflicting impulses ? aides and friends such as Lainy Lebow-Sachs. She organized an 85th birthday party for him last month in the grand foyer at the Enoch Pratt Free Library that featured an extravagant 85 large cakes in sumptuous varieties, reflecting some of the Schaefer-esque over-the-top style.
A long line of well-wishers, mostly gray-haired and some misty-eyed, inched their way up to hug and praise the seated “Governor”, who lately has been showing his years. As the crowd dissipated, a reporter asked Schaefer if he?d like a hug.
“I don?t like reporters,” groused the old man. He has been both adored and vilified by newspapers over his long lifework but generally gotten more and better press than many a fawning media hound.
There is no question that his 15 years as mayor of Baltimore, from 1971 to 1986, was the highlight of his career. It was almost cut short in 1976 by deranged gunman Charles Hopkins who was looking for Schaefer but instead killed City Councilman Dominic Leone and wounded four others because he was upset the city shut his restaurant down. A watchful aide ? Joanne McQuade, one of the many female “angels” in his life ? led the shooter away from Schaefer?s office.
In an interview with The Examiner, Schaefer fondly remembered his greatest days.
“There?s no job like mayor. Mayor made me the happiest man when I lived in that little house in Baltimore City. Governor is nice in name, but to be a mayor you accomplish an awful lot. As governor, you?ve got statewide responsibilities, but if you?re mayor of a city, you know everything that goes on in the city, you know everything about it.”
Other people?s money
To be sure, Schaefer didn?t do any of these projects by himself. In fact, his success was in getting other people to pay for things ina city that was struggling to survive. Bankers, developers, hotel impresarios, governors, legislators, congressmen and federal bureaucrats fell under the sway of Schaefer?s passion for the city. Programs known as “sweat equity” allowed entrepreneurs to purchase abandoned buildings for $1 if they renovated the property. Sweetening the deal, Schaefer?s administration offered low-interest loans and established the Baltimore Economic Development Corp. (BEDCO) in 1976. BEDCO, a private agency, became known as a one-stop clearinghouse to help businesses find property and funding. Before Mayor Martin O?Malley put up all the signs that say “Believe,” Schaefer was the true believer and convinced others to do the same.
He was often more intimidating than charming. For most of those years, he benefited from a federal government willing to pour millions into cities, money that has long since dried up. Schaefer was often accused of having “an edifice complex,” but much of that outside money also flowed into jobs programs, housing projects and neighborhood revitalization. That social spending had less visible or lasting impact.
Schaefer also made sure the trash was picked up, alleys were policed and potholes were filled. He could be seen driving in his 1975 Pontiac, cruising Baltimore streets where he made mental notes about redevelopment and potholes that would later appear in what became his Mayor Action Memo.
Above all, Schaefer was the nationally renowned cheerleader for a city hemorrhaging population. “Baltimore Is Best,” said the bumper stickers, but 10,000 people a year left town during his tenure.
As detailed in C. Fraser Smith?s thorough and engaging biography, Schaefer was often underestimated ? “a dummy” and an unlikely urban hero. He was no great shakes as a lawyer and was a worker bee on the City Council, rising to be elected citywide as its president. He was 50 the day he was first elected mayor, a bachelor living with hismother Tululu in a West Baltimore row house he held onto for decades. A shy man with a bundle of insecurities, he masked them well on the public stage with a willingness to be both goofy and outrageous.
To this day, he can be abusive to his staff and dictatorial, but he generates intense loyalty, some working for him for many years. He pushes people to their limits and praises them when they can match his demands.
The next step
If a political boss hadn?t tapped him to be mayor, Baltimore might have gotten its first black mayor in 1971. But Schaefer, a clear product of the older style of racial politics, held off that day for 15 years. If he hadn?t run for governor in 1986, again at the urging of friends and an old political boss, former Attorney General Stephen Sachs might have been a two-term governor.
Governor was a position Schaefer didn?t particularly want and didn?t much like when he got it. “I didn?t like giving up being mayor. I?ve never been as happy in my life as when I was mayor,” Schaefer said. “I didn?t want to be governor. Governor was the next step, it was the thing to do.”
As governor, with a stronger legislature to keep him in line, the feisty Democrat could do less of what he wanted, but he tried. He stunned the party in 1992 when he endorsed President George Bush over Bill Clinton and four years later endorsed Bob Dole over Clinton.
He didn?t much care for sports, but he believed them important to the way people felt and thought about the city. So he spent much of his last years as mayor and then as governor working to keep a baseball team in the city and bring a football team back. He saw the highly praised Camden Yards built and laid the legal groundwork for the Ravens stadium, drawing heaps of abuse for this use of public funds for rich sports owners.
If Schaefer hadn?t been around, the Orioles and Ravens might be gone as well.
Winding down
His two terms as state comptroller could be called an afterthought. He was little suited by training or experience to be a chief tax collector and pension overseer, but he did know how to be governor. If Schaefer had not rushed to fill the void left by his own lonely retirement and by the death of Comptroller Louis Goldstein, former Montgomery County Congressman Michael Barnes might be holding down the job, and Gov. Parris Glendening?s second term might have been more tranquil without the hectoring of a second governor on the Board of Public Works.
If Schaefer had taken the advice of some of those close to him and retired again this year, the citizens could have been spared the sight of a man grown old, cranky and out of date, whose antics and outbursts were no longer amusing, not just politically incorrect but insensitive and politically disastrous. As he did when he left the governorship, he might have enjoyed another round of honors and awards.
As his second term as governor ended, Schaefer wrote: “I leave office with a challenge to the people of Maryland: Do something to make Maryland a better place. Help clean up a park. Read to your children. Volunteer in their schools. Run for public office. Plant a tree. Visit an elderly person. If each of us does this and focuses on what?s right about Maryland, then our state has a bright future indeed.”
These are words to remember as he leaves office again. It sounds like a prescription for a wonderful life.
And when bells ring this holiday season, remember this: The many angels attached to the sometimes devilish politician have earned their wings.
Schaefer?s monuments
» City Hall: Rehabilitated and refurbished, $10 million, 1974-76.
» World Trade Center, 1977, designed by I.M. Pei; State office building housing Port Authority and port-relatedbusiness. Currently for sale.
» Convention Center: Opened August 1979; 425,000 square feet; $51 million; Expansion, September 1996, 1.2 million square feet; $151 million.
» Hyatt Regency Hotel: 1980, Schaefer persuades owner to invest; federal grant used to build garage next door.
» Harborplace: July 1980, private financing; Gallery at Harborplace, 1988.
» National Aquarium: August 1981; $21 million
» Subway: Total cost $1.4 billion, 15.5 miles, Owings Mills to East Baltimore; first 8 miles opened in 1983 at cost of $797 million.
» Oriole Park at Camden Yards: April 1992, $205 million (revenue bonds based on lottery), Maryland Stadium Authority.
» Light Rail Line: Total cost $506 million, 30 miles, Hunt Valley to Glen Burnie; first 22.5 miles opened in April 1992.
William Donald Schaefer
» Age: 85, born in Baltimore, Nov. 2, 1921.
» Education: Baltimore City College; University of Baltimore School of Law, 1942
» Military: Army hospital administrator in World War II, later retired as colonel in the reserves.
» Professional: Real estate lawyer in 1950s.
» Career:
» Baltimore City Council, 1955-71;
» City Council President, 1967-71;
» Mayor, 1971-86;
» Governor, 1987-95;
» Comptroller, 1999-2007
