A year later, former Mayor Sheila Dixon is taking it one day at a time 

Posted: 7:49 pm Thu, December 9, 2010
By Melody Simmons
Daily Record Business Writer

One year after the misdemeanor embezzlement conviction in Baltimore City Circuit Court that led to her resignation, former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon offered a long-awaited apology for the scandal and said she still holds political aspirations that include a possible run for mayor.

In a wide-ranging interview Wednesday at The Daily Record, Dixon said she is performing community service at Our Daily Bread and smaller city nonprofits, working as a consultant to help pay a $45,000 charitable donation mandated in her plea agreement and trying to rebuild her life.

“I disappointed the city, my family and myself,” Dixon said of the conviction on Dec. 1, 2009, that led her to resign on Feb. 4 as part of a plea agreement with the Maryland State Special Prosecutor’s office.

“I try to apologize every day in how I’m living my life out,” said Dixon, who got to keep her $83,000-a-year pension as part of an agreement to step down as mayor. “Hopefully people realize that I am sorry for some of my decisions.”

http://www.vimeo.com/17653745

Watch video from the interview with Sheila Dixon

During the hourlong interview, Dixon was opinionated, resilient and regretful as she portrayed the events of the past year relating to her indictment, the trial, her resignation from office and her life afterward.

“My year’s been one day at a time,” she said. “Do I miss what I was doing? Yes, definitely. Have I grown from some of the decisions I’ve made? Yes. Have I tried to improve who I am as a person and my outlook on life? Yes.”

She spoke of spending more time at home, cooking for her teenage son, planning to replace a dated furnace and repainting walls. Of rekindling an interest in photography and keeping a daily journal and continuing to work out and regularly ride with a Baltimore County bicycle club.

The city’s first female mayor said she remains dedicated to public service and still keenly observes local politics. She questioned some of the decisions and actions of her former colleagues at City Hall, such as the city’s overall vision, budgetary moves and the upcoming Grand Prix race downtown.

The race, scheduled for Labor Day weekend in 2011, was not a good deal for the city, Dixon said.

“I was very, very soft on whether or not we should really do that race and the investment it was going to take,” she said, explaining that spending the city’s limited resources on major road repairs to prepare the urban Grand Prix track near the Inner Harbor was questionable as neighborhood roads that haven’t been resurfaced in decades remain ignored.

“It’s just not something I think Baltimore needed to do right now.”

The former mayor also said she did not support the idea of the Greater Baltimore Committee’s board to demolish the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel and a portion of the Baltimore Convention Center in order to construct a new arena.

“I think the arena should go where it is and that’s where the focus is,” she said. “I had approved it to go there. That would be the catalyst to help us in that whole Westside development.”

Dixon is working as a marketing consultant for Sojourner-Douglass College and the Maryland Minority Contractors Association, and performing a required 500 hours of community service.

She said her successor, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, has lost some of the momentum started under her administration in greening and cleaning the city, the 10-year plan to eliminate homelessness and reducing violent crime.

“We were making great strides,” she said, “I feel like the city has gotten back to being more reactive than proactive. And I know there have been crises that have happened that you can’t control, but there’s no real plan of action. And I hear from different groups that they don’t have access to the administration the way that they did” when she was in office. “I was a hands-on person.”

Of Rawlings-Blake, the former president of the City Council, Dixon said: “I don’t see a clear vision.”

Of her former council colleagues, Dixon said she has witnessed them struggle with the budget as the Great Recession wears on and the city is awash in red ink.

The panel voted last spring to raise taxes and impose higher costs and fees on things like parking meters, parking garages, parking tickets, hotel rooms and soda containers to balance the budget.

Such controversial actions, Dixon said, whittle away at the business community in the city and its ability to function.

“It’s a tough decision when you have a deficit,” she said. “But one of the things we are at fault or are weak in, and this is not a criticism but probably my colleagues and friends in the council would say it is, but you’ve got to study the budget. And I don’t think that folks take the time to do that. And so you’re forced to make these decisions from the hip with the threat of closing rec centers, etc., versus looking for long-term, and nobody wants to take the time to do that.

“That’s one of the big, big weaknesses that I see in this administration and in the council.”

Dixon is not eligible under the terms of her plea agreement to seek office until her probation ends in three years.

She admitted that she has no idea how she would be received as a candidate for the city’s top office again: “Of course, I would do a poll to find out.”

This past year has led her to reflect on her life and career, which started as a teacher in the Baltimore City Public Schools in the late 1970s.

Dixon was convicted by a jury in Circuit Court of one count of misdemeanor embezzlement involving $630 in gift cards she kept or spent that were donated to the city by wealthy developers intended to be distributed to the city’s poor.

A second trial on perjury charges was never held because she entered into a plea agreement. Under the agreement, she entered an Alford plea for the second charge and agreed to perform community service at local nonprofits, including working at the reception desk and the work force training division at Our Daily Bread, the homeless shelter and soup kitchen downtown.

There, she is recognized, often with shock by the clients.

“Some are not sure if it’s me or not,” she said. “They give me encouragement of the great job that I’ve done and whatever I decide to do they would love to be in support and help me.”

She has heard negative comments, too.

“I was in the Gallery and this young lady came into a store I was in and made a very derogative comment,” she said. “But, you know, being the kind of person I am, 10-20 years ago I probably would have turned around and said something back to her. But I just ignored her.”

Dixon said it is too early to determine whether she will support a candidate in the 2011 mayoral election. Already a number of candidates have expressed interest in running, including Rawlings-Blake; Otis Rolley III, the former city planning director; state Sen. Catherine Pugh; and Frank Conaway, clerk of the city courts.

“It’s going to be crowded,” Dixon said of the race. “And it is going to be sad because some of the candidates who are getting in should not get into the race.

“The election that’s coming up for the city — I feel that we’re not prepared for moving this city forward the way we need to. There are a lot of challenges, and it’s going to take a person with not only vision, but drive. And also the kind of talent that can pull people together … and I’m not feeling that energy right now.”

When she spoke of the trial in Circuit Court last year, Dixon choked up at one point, recalling the emotions as the verdict was given and during the hours directly afterward. She said she regrets not taking the witness stand.

She said her attorneys advised against testifying after her former boyfriend, wealthy developer Ronald Lipscomb, was withdrawn as a prosecution witness.

“I wanted to testify. In hindsight, I probably should have,” she said. “I would have clarified some issues.”

Dixon said “there are a lot of pieces that the public doesn’t know that would surprise them” about her case — but she declined to give specifics. That will come at a later date, she pledged, possibly in a book.

“It boils down to a relationship that I had with an individual,” she said of Lipscomb, who was married and spent lavishly on gifts for Dixon then, while she was president of the City Council. “I didn’t do anything inappropriate as far as for being bribed or deals. If I had disclosed those gifts … but when you’re in a relationship with somebody that you don’t want anybody to know anything about …”

She said the snub by President-elect Barack Obama as he made a pre-inaugural stop in Baltimore on his way to Washington is still fresh.

“I was very hurt and disappointed,” she said of Obama’s not inviting her to the dais during his speech at War Memorial Plaza. “I was a supporter of Obama. I still attended, but I’m human. It did hurt.”

Now in the throes of rehabilitating her public image, Dixon said she is soldiering on. Asked to describe this chapter of her life, the former councilwoman who became infamous for once wielding a stiletto in chambers at her white colleagues became introspective.

“I’m going to look at it as a learning experience and despite the fall, I’m blessed because every day, I get up,” she said. “And it’s by the grace of God that I can stand and hold my head up.”