Anderson ‘amazed at how many Mexicans’ working on city school

Del. Curt Anderson is coming under fire by a conservative blogger for comments made about the race of workers at a city school he recently toured.

Anderson, a Baltimore City Democrat who chairs the city delegation in the House of Delegates, can be heard discussing the issue of school construction in the city at a League of Women Voters legislative breakfast.

Anderson’s comments were recorded by Dennis McIver, who co-hosts a podcast on Citythatbreeds.com. McIver’s audio was first published by Jeff Quinton on Quintonreport.com.

During that discussion, Anderson tells the audience about touring a school that is scheduled to open on January 6.

“I was amazed at how many Mexicans they have working on that school,” Anderson said. “Should be more African-American and minority contractors but still.”

McIver live tweeted the meeting Saturday morning and mentioned Anderson’s statements on his Twitter account.

McIver, in an interview Saturday night, said he attended the meeting and discussed recording it with representatives of the League of Women Voters, who organized the breakfast at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church.

“Not only did they know, there were three microphones and a mobile recorder on the table in front of [the legislators],” McIver said.

McIver said he was surprised by what he called “an off the cuff statement” by Anderson. He said the comments received little reaction from the audience.

“There was no reaction at all,” McIver said. “It was crazy.”

McIver added that he believes Anderson knew what he was saying at the time and “at the very least, the comments were insensitive.”

“He’s smart enough to know exactly how that comes across,” McIver said. “He has a background in media. He had to know.”

McIver said he plans to release the full audio of the on the Citythatbreeds.com site in the next 24 hours.

Anderson, who was a news anchor and reporter for WMAR and state legislative reporter for WBAL television, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Quinton, on his blog, criticized Anderson’s comments.

“I’m not sure whether Anderson actually thought all the construction workers were Mexican or just assumed since he saw Latinos that they must all be Mexican. These are at best pretty insensitive comments for an elected official to make. Anderson has endorsed Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown in the race for governor.”