Baltimore mayoral candidates stick to talking points during televised debate
The leading Democratic candidates for Baltimore mayor strayed little from their campaign talking points Wednesday as they addressed questions about youth violence, city tax incentives and affordable housing during the first televised mayoral debate of the election cycle.
Recorded at midday in an auditorium at Morgan State University to air at 7 p.m. on WBAL-TV, the debate pitted incumbent Brandon Scott against Sheila Dixon, Thiru Vignarajah and Bob Wallace. The field divided as it has during past public forums — with Scott and Dixon, mayor from 2007 to 2010, emphasizing their experience in office, and Vignarajah and Wallace trying to paint the two as tired politicians.
“We need someone who is an adult who can manage and lead this city,” Dixon, 70, said in her opening remarks, nodding to her tenure in office and the relative youth of Scott, 40.
“We did all this by leading the right way, without corruption, without scandal,” Scott said, touting his record and noting Dixon’s inauspicious exit from office after she was found guilty of embezzling gift cards meant for poor families.
Previous meetings of the same candidates have been lively. The four sparred last month before a packed house at Roland Park Presbyterian Church in North Baltimore as members of the audience loudly cheered and jeered. Wednesday’s setting was comparatively quiet, and candidates stuck closely to their messaging with just four weeks remaining before the May 14 Democratic primary.
While Baltimore’s homicide rate fell below 300 in 2023 for the first time in nearly a decade, crime has remained a hot topic on the campaign trail as quality-of-life crimes such as car thefts have surged, leaving residents uneasy. Baltimore also continues to grapple with high-profile instances of youth violence, the worst of which was a mass shooting last year during a Brooklyn Day celebration in South Baltimore that killed two and injured 28 more, many young people.
Clarence M. Mitchell IV, a WBAL-AM host also known as C4, asked the candidates what they would do to address juvenile crime.
Vignarajah, 47, a former prosecutor, answered that he would target chronic absenteeism among city students. He also argued the city is not going hard enough on youth offenders.
“Carjackers, robbers, auto thefts committed by children, committed by youthful offenders, are being treated like you’re stealing bubblegum from the cafeteria,” he said.
Dixon said her approach would focus on the home environment of city youth. More community schools — those that offer after-school programming and support services for families — should be part of the solution, she said.
“We can talk about statistics, but if we don’t get to the root of what is happening, we’re going to be losing more residents to Baltimore County and other surrounding counties,” she said.
Scott, Baltimore’s mayor since 2020, lauded his administration’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy, which targets individuals most at risk for violence, including would-be trigger-pullers and potential gunshot victims, to offer them services. The next step, Scott said, is working to modernize parts of the system that are controlled by state agencies, such as probation and parole.
Wallace, 67, a businessman who ran for mayor in 2020 as an independent candidate, said his approach would be the same that his father used raising Wallace and his siblings in Cherry Hill in South Baltimore: a belt and a carrot.
“If you broke the rules, there were going to be consequences,” he said. “Not only does the child need to be held accountable, but their parents … also need to be held accountable.”
A recent poll conducted for The Baltimore Sun, the University of Baltimore and FOX45 showed the mayor’s race remains close, with Scott and Dixon leading the pack. Of the likely primary voters surveyed, 38% said they would support Scott, while 35% backed Dixon. Just 10% favored Vignarajah, while Wallace trailed with 4%. The April 7-10 poll of 508 Democrats has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
Candidates were also asked Wednesday for their thoughts on tax incentives. Jeff Salkin, a news anchor for Maryland Public Television, asked them to name an incentive that they believed had been successful — or to highlight one that didn’t work.
Dixon cited projects in Edmondson Village and Uplands, both in Southwest Baltimore, as successful, but called the city’s investment in the Mondawmin area of West Baltimore a failure. A $15 million tax incentive paved the way for a Target there, but the store closed in 2017.
“That was a TIF [tax increment financing] and PILOT [payment in lieu of taxes] that failed because no one understood management,” she said.
Scott said Harbor Point has benefited city residents. The 27-acre site of a former chromium plant on Baltimore’s waterfront, east of downtown, has received tens of millions of dollars in public subsidy. Scott also highlighted his plan, unveiled late last year, to establish TIF zones in residential neighborhoods to assist with the redevelopment of vacant properties.
“Uptown deserves the same treatment as downtown,” he said.
Vignarajah and Wallace contended that there have been no successful tax incentives offered in Baltimore.
“I say zero, sir. Zero benefits for the people of Baltimore,” Wallace said.
“The city politicians that are on this stage have pioneered giving TIFs to their former donors,” Vignarajah said.
Sun/FOX45/UB Poll: Mayor Brandon Scott, Sheila Dixon locked in another close race
Jayne Miller, a WBAL-AM host and a former reporter for WBAL-TV, questioned candidates about their plans to increase the city’s supply of affordable housing.
Dixon said she favors creating a land bank to acquire and redevelop city properties. As mayor, Dixon tried to institute such a plan, but the City Council struck it down. She argued the proposal was killed because of “dysfunction.” That same dysfunction persists in Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development, she said.
Scott argued the department already has the capabilities of a land bank. The mayor touted a decrease in vacant properties during his tenure. The number has dropped to about 13,000 from roughly 16,000, a total that persisted for about two decades prior, he said.
“There’s already tools on the books that we can use to do that investment from the city, from the state and from the private sector to take this work that’s at its lowest point now and escalating it up to scale,” he said.