Baltimore needs honest leadership, and that’s not Dixon

So Sheila Dixon says in an op-ed that she is truly sorry for mistakes made in her personal life, just hours before she announces she is going to make another run at mayor.

Unfortunately what she calls mere “mistakes” were not some youthful indiscretions, and some were in her political not personal life. She tries to euphemize stealing gift cards intended for poor city children as merely a misdemeanor. While it may have been in the legal sense, it surely was more serious than possession of marijuana or disorderly conducts. She also entered a guilty plea under the Alford doctrine, meaning that she did not admit guilt but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict her, on perjury charges for making false statements on disclosure forms. But her attorneys negotiated a probation before judgment plea deal on that charge and the theft conviction, which struck the guilty verdicts and allowed her to retain her lucrative government pension.

These are character issues, not personal issues unrelated to the job she seeks to reclaim. And she has the nerve to close her op-ed “with love, Sheila.” The only thing Sheila Dixon loves is money and power. Her penchant for mink coats and the fact that this will be her third run for mayor after leaving office evidences this. And she may win. While battling an incumbent is often difficult, Brandon Scott, while a nice decent guy is very young and not politically astute.

Baltimore is in bad shape and needs innovative, competent and honest leadership.

True character counts

Apology not accepted. After reading the commentary by Sheila Dixon, I was truly wondering if she was truly sorry for what she did in her public life. “I let matters of the heart lead me astray,” she wrote. Matters of the heart is no excuse for what she did as mayor of Baltimore: stealing and perjury. True character counts.