Today, former Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will be officially sworn in as the 49th mayor of Baltimore. She replaces Sheila Dixon, who was convicted of embezzlement last December and subsequently announced her resignation from office last month.

Dixon – who was convicted of embezzlement connected to the theft of several gift cards intended for the poor – served her last full day in office yesterday. She had been the first female mayor in the city’s history.

Rawlings-Blake takes the oath of office the same day Dixon will be formally sentenced. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors asked the court to strike Dixon's guilty verdict on embezzlement, and she will get probation before judgment, receive no jail time and keep her $83,000 a year pension.

Additionally, Dixon will receive four years of unsupervised probation, contribute 500 hours of community service and donate $45,000 to charity.

Her resignation was also part of that plea deal and included an Alford plea on a charge of perjury Dixon would have faced during a trial in March connected to gifts she received from a prominent Baltimore developer, who also had an intimate relationship with the former mayor. The Alford plea means Dixon doesn’t admit to guilt on the charge of perjury, yet acknowledges prosecutors had enough evidence to convict her of it.

Rawlings-Blake – the daughter of the late Howard “Pete” Rawlings, for years one of the Maryland’s most powerful politicians – takes office in the wake of Dixon’s fall from grace and faces a $127 million structural budget deficit. Still, the new mayor said, “I’m feeling encouraged” about the challenges she and the city of Baltimore face.

“We have a strong package, and I’m looking forward to making sure that the city delegation on both sides of the hallway know I want to be a good partner,” Rawlings-Blake added during the recent start of the Maryland General Assembly. Many of the city’s other political leaders have rallied around Rawlings-Blake during one of the most challenging times in Baltimore’s history.

“We’re going to get through this. The transition, I think, from Dixon to Rawlings-Blake is going to be smooth," said Maryland state Sen. Nathaniel McFadden, leader of the Baltimore City Delegation.
His sentiments were echoed by his colleague, Sen. Verna Jones.

“She (Rawlings-Blake) is going to be on top of what’s going on, and the city delegation is going to make sure of that. The city delegation is behind Baltimore City 100 percent, and therefore behind the mayor,” Jones said.

“I don’t believe we’ll miss a beat,” she added.

Despite the optimism of some city leaders, the transition from Dixon to Rawlings-Blake has not been without controversy.

The new mayor recently ran afoul of several of the politicians who publicly supported her because she has allegedly worked behind the scenes to prevent Councilman Bernard “Jack” Young – their pick to succeed Rawlings-Blake as city council president – in favor of Councilman William Cole, IV.

“To me, Jack has paid his dues, okay? And he deserves the opportunity,” said Delegate Melvin Stukes, who also served with Young on the council for several years.

And just days after agreeing to her plea deal, Dixon gave an interview to the Associated Press where she refused to admit to any wrongdoing.

The interview aroused the ire of state prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh, who obtained the conviction against the former mayor. He offered a searing rebuke of Dixon’s comments in which he characterized her as “unrepentant” and “arrogant.”

Many believe Dixon’s statements and Rohrbaugh’s subsequent response has exasperated the city’s already tenuous political landscape.

But after an investigation that lasted years, cost millions and included a high-profile, early morning raid of Dixon’s home in .....

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