Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon finally gets it. She decided to excuse herself from a Board of Estimates vote involving her former boyfriend’s development firm. You remember him — Ronald Lipscomb? The man who gave her a fur coat and plane tickets? The one who she, as City Council president, voted to give tax breaks and beneficial zoning changes? State prosecutors are still investing that small (and, to give the benefit of the doubt, perhaps coincidental) scandal. Kudos to the mayor for recusing herself from this one. Too bad she didn’t think of that when she was City Council president.
OUTRAGE: Injury inflation
WHO: Maryland’s juvenile justice system
WHAT: The system, which in 2007 saw the death of a 17-year-old being restrained by staff, had an 88 percent increase in the number of injuries reported in the system this year.
WHY IT’S A BAD IDEA: Yes, there’s a strong possibility that this could be, as system officials said, a result of more zealous reporting by staff members. But an 88 percent increase seems awfully high. The Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit needs to investigate the reports to find out whether they are the result of abuse. Even if the uptick comes as a result of better reporting practices, 2,447 seems like a lot of injuries for 10 months.
WHERE TO VENT: Call the Monitoring Unit’s office at 410-576-6968.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The mayor is playing it safe. … She wants to avoid even the suspicion of a conflict of interest.” — Ian Brennan, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon’s spokesman, on the mayor’s decision to recuse herself from a vote that would affect her former boyfriend’s development firm.
