A week after Doracon Contracting Inc. President Ronald Lipscomb was indicted on charges of bribing Mayor Sheila Dixon, his fellow developers backed away from comment on how the case could affect Baltimore’s business environment.
A spokesman for Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse Chief Executive Officer and President Bill Struever said Struever declined to comment. Developers Pat Turner of Turner Development Group, The Cordish Co., and Mark Sapperstein did not return calls for comment as of press time.
A Baltimore Development Corp. spokeswoman referred all requests for comment to Executive Director M.J. “Jay” Brodie, but said he was out sick Wednesday, and would not make other representatives available. The BDC is the city’s economic development arm and oversees all phases of major development efforts.
Lipscomb was charged two days before a grand jury indicted Mayor Sheila Dixon on 12 counts of felony theft, perjury, fraud and misconduct in office for allegedly failing to disclose gifts from him.
In addition to the political and social ramifications, the charges could have “tremendous” fallout for the city’s business prospects, said Wayne Frazier, president of the Maryland Washington Minority Contractors Association, a minority business advocate.
“I’m just disappointed in this whole scenario,” Frazier said. “It paints Baltimore as a corrupt place to do business, and that is not the case for the majority of the business people I know and do business with.”
But at the same time, Frazier said political contributions by developers are commonplace.
“Most developers understand that political contributions are a part of their game,” he said. “I don’t know one developer that does not understand that.”
The larger business community, including the city’s major developers, will likely withhold comment until Dixon and Lipscomb’s cases have played out, said Don Fry, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee.
“Hopefully É all business leaders subscribe to the principle [of] doing things aboveboard,” Fry said Tuesday. “At the same time, we’re dealing with something that’s just coming out, people are going to hold back a little bit and see what the final verdict is.”
