A new office, a new life
Nearly three months into the job, Martin O'Malley finds that, for the
most part, it's good to be the mayor.
____________________________________________________
SHORTLY AFTER Martin O'Malley was elected mayor, he opened
the desk drawer in his office and discovered a note from his
predecessor, Kurt L. Schmoke.
The note said: "Please remember the truth set forward in Psalm 127:
'Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.'"
O'Malley was puzzled and per plexed by Schmoke's message, with its
deep, foreboding overtones. Baltimore's new mayor prefers a more
optimistic message: "God helps those who help themselves."
The mayor's office has changed since this former councilman took
over in December. Sunshine pours through office windows that
Schmoke kept shuttered, and music plays softly in the background as
O'Malley goes about the business of being mayor.
While Schmoke was stiff and formal, O'Malley is loose and candid.
Bal timore's new mayor clearly enjoys the Robert Kennedy look --
shirt collar un buttoned, tie pulled loose and shirt sleeves rolled up.
Recently, O'Malley rankled mem bers of Maryland's judiciary by
urging state lawmakers to withhold almost $9 million in state funding
for the city courts until the judges cooperate more on reform efforts.
In the late afternoon of a grueling work day filled with meetings and
city business, O'Malley spoke with Perspective Editor Mike Adams
about the mayor's crusade to make the city safer and about how being
mayor has changed his life.
Look five years into the future. Your first term has ended.
What will people say about you? What would you want them to
say?
I'd want them to say I tackled problems head on, that I did not
sugarcoat anything, that I told people the truth and that I woke up the
city and got us to face our biggest problem, which is the double
standard of justice that exists around drug trafficking, these open-air
drug markets and the death and the violence that is bringing us down
as a people and a city.
I hope that five years from now, people will look back on my
administration and say that's when we came together as a city and
turned it around and started growing again. And it all began with
recognizing that 300 homicides a year is not acceptable.
Recently, I spoke to one of the top Democrats in the mayor's
race, and he's convinced that he lost because city residents --
black and white -- were fed up with Kurt Schmoke and did not
want to elect another black mayor. Do you think that's an
accurate assessment?
No, I don't think that's an accurate assessment. I don't think people
were making their decision in this last election based primarily on race
or skin color.
I think what people wanted was a change, and I think people wanted a
candidate who could articulate a message of change and reform that
held public safety up as the No. 1 target.
I think people were looking for a change from the last 12 years. But I
don't think it was primarily race based. I think that if perhaps one of
the other candidates had been articulating that message of change and
reform, there would not have been enough oxygen for my candidacy
that late in the game. But the fact is, neither of them was.
What do you see as the problem with 12 years of Kurt Schmoke
I think we had a real self-defeating attitude toward public safety and
what law enforcement and human beings can do about public safety.
In high school, the Jesuits taught me that expectations become
behavior. We were expected not to be able to do anything about drug
violence until drugs were legalized. And we failed, because we were
expecting to fail.
Mayor Schmoke and his wife could not have been kinder to me and
Katie [O'Malley's wife] during the whole transition process. We had
some knockdown drag-outs [when O'Malley was a councilman], but
he was always a gentleman, and I have a great deal of respect for
him, and I think he believes sincerely that when he started advocating
for medicalization or decriminalization or whatever it was, I think he
believed sincerely that that was the way to go. But as New York, and
Boston and New Orleans started showing [with tougher policing], that
wasn't the way to go, but we just couldn't let go of that.
I think we stuck too doggedly to [drug decriminalization], and it made
us miss the economic wave that was lifting every other city in recent
years.
I think [Schmoke] had a limited view of what government was capable
of accomplishing.
Recently, you urged legislators to withhold money for the city
courts until judges unclog what you call a "dysfunctional"
system. What, if any, reaction have you gotten?
People are totally with me -- and the judges are coming around. [The
interview occurred before O'Malley and Chief Judge Martha F. Rasin
exchanged harsh words over how to fix the city's beleaguered justice
system.] We've had a fair amount of progress in this last year on this
criminal justice reform issue. We've had more progress in the last year
than we've had in the last 10 years, probably. And we had more
progress in the seven days leading up to that hearing than we had in
the last year. I served notice that I'm not going to be pulling the rug
out
from under our Police Department, telling them that they need to back
off because the courts are clogged with cases.
There is a constitutional, fair and just way to deal with large numbers
of cases. And the judges have been resisting those changes for three
years. What we're advocating is to simply have the judges operate an
arraignment court over at Central Booking so that we can shake out
half of these cases that wind up getting pled out anyway, so that we
can shake them out with fair dispositions, so our state courts have
more room on the dockets so they can focus on the repeat violent
offenses and the gun offenses.
Our new Police Department is going to be putting together packets on
every gun case right at intake so that the prosecutor has the certified
records that they need to make the demand for minimum mandatory
sentences.
We're also turning over the charging function to the state's attorney so
that she can be involved right up front.
I think the greatest evidence of the dysfunction came last spring when
the legislature first held up the funds when a couple of people accused
of murder went gleefully skipping across Calvert Street, because our
affectionate and compassionate system could not find time to try their
case.
I didn't get elected to make friends with judges, I got elected to save
lives and reduce homicides and to restore some justice to this city on
a
whole range of issues.
New York's vigorous brand of policing works because the
cases are processed quickly. What you want to do here, have a
very efficient police department, won't work without
streamlining the courts, correct?
In Baltimore City, serious cases crumble over time. The defense bar
knows that if you want to do what's in your client's best interest in
Baltimore City, you drag out the case as long as possible, and it
crumbles under its own weight. We can arrest and arrest and arrest,
but if they're not going to focus on that repeat number of violent
offenders, we're not going to show results.
Describe a typical day in the life of Mayor Martin O'Malley?
We haven't settled into the typical yet. It's not unusual for me to have
eight, 10, 12 meetings during the course of a day, a press conference
or press announcement or something, a ton of phone calls to return,
and a ton of paper that I never seem to get through.
Today, I had a meeting with the city solicitor and others at 8:15 [a.m.]
before the Board of Estimates meeting. Then there was an impromtu
press conference after the meeting. Then there were four or five
people who each wanted to speak to me for one minute, so after that,
a half-hour was done -- that's how long it took to speak to the people
who just wanted one minute. Then I walked to a senior staff meeting,
and after that there were other meetings.
How has your personal life changed since you became mayor?
Time management has become really, really difficult. It wasn't easy
before. I'm still learning this job.
I remember when I was first elected to the council, it took me about a
year to figure out which things I needed to attend to be really effective
and which things I really did not need to attend. I'm struggling with that
balance right now.
It has also changed my life because there is no more anonymity. Just
going to the grocery store takes twice the time, even walking down the
street takes twice the time. Just getting out of the convenience store
with a cup of coffee for the road takes twice as long. Everything takes
more time.
There's a degree of anonymity as a council person. Just walking from
point A to point B, you rarely get stopped as a council person. You get
stopped every 10 feet when you're mayor. . . .
Obviously, as mayor, you have less time to spend with your
family.
Yeah, my poor family is getting short shrift right now, and I need to
find a way to fix that. I'm not doing too well on that score right now,
and home is not happy. My kids [Grace, Tara and William] are 8 and 7
and 2, and for them there is no distinction between quality time and
nonquality time; it's just time. And time equals love, and if you're not
there, it's because you care about other things. . . .
Has the job brought you any unexpected joys or frustrations?
The unexpected frustration has been how many of my closest friends
feel like I have forgotten about them.
It's an interesting phenomenon. If you don't stay in touch with your
closest friends, they start to imagine that somehow you've grown
closer to other people. You're far more suspect after being elected to
an important political position like this. People start to question things,
and they see subplots and ulterior motives in the absence of
communication.
I was expessing that frustration to [William Donald] Schaefer, and he
said, "You know, you don't have time to stay in touch with all of them,
with all your friends -- and you never will." And I said, "Yeah, I
know."And he said, "Yeah, but you've got to find the time or make the
time to do it." . . .
Unexpected joys? I run into them all the time with people coming up to
me on the streets or sending me kind letters.
A lot of people have a lot of hopes pinned on this administration in
terms of turning the city around, especially some of our harder-hit
neighborhoods.
So, in the times when you're feeling like the world is in your way, and
nobody is with you, just when you feel that way, someone, a little old
lady, will come up and tap you on the shoulder and say, "I'm so glad
you're mayor,' or something like that."
You seem to enjoy people.
Yeah, I do. It's a funny thing, I'm a bit of an introvert, but I really
do
enjoy people, and I don't run away from a crowd. But I'm also happy
by myself just plucking away at a guitar, too.
There's a tremendous energy in the city.
Truthfully, there are times when I don't feel like going out. There's
nothing more I'd enjoy than going home instead of to a speaking thing,
but when I do go out, there is a certain energy that pumps you up and
makes you realize that there are a lot of people who want to help you.
Do you feel that energy when you're speaking?
Oh, yes, definitely. Each audience has its own personality.
How much of you is shaped by your Roman Catholic
upbringing?
Who's to sort it out? It's all kind of one and the same -- family, faith,
church and school. It was all sort of one and the same, part of an
integrated system that I grew up in. I think it had a big impact. One of
the things the Jesuits drummed into your head is that you have to be a
man for others.
What really determines whether one has made the most of their
relatively short time on the planet is how many other lives they've
touched and what you've done for other people.
Are you guided by a set of principles that make you who you
are?
I hope so. A friend of mine said, just when I was starting to skirt
around the edge of this pool before jumping in, I said to him, "I'm
thinking very seriously about running for mayor," and he said, "Make
sure you spend some time alone, so you can sort out your convictions
from your ambitions. Because when the going gets rough, it's not your
ambition that's going to sustain you. It will be your convictions." And
it
was good advice.
I believe very firmly that one person can make a difference. And I
believe that each of us has an obligation to try. And I think that all
of
us have a lot to give.
Originally published on Feb 27 2000