Mayor TV is a challenge from America’s mayors to the 2008 Presidential candidates: Start talking about cities. Learn more

Mayor Sheila Dixon

Baltimore, MD / Pop. 640,961 / Elected 2007

“We have wars here in our city. We should be making strides against drugs and gang violence, but it's something I never hear the presidential candidates talk about.”

— Mayor Sheila Dixon

Comments

Nicole on 12.14.07:

What a ridiculous and useless non-interview with Sheila Dixon! Why would anyone want to get updates from you when you are so irrelevant? Sheila Dixon is not progressive. It's not about what they say, it's about what they do. She's done nothing to move Baltimore forward in 21 years. She was elected because she is a puppet of the governor and the corrupt financial power moguls that control politicians like her that have no integrity. You failed to mention her numerous ethics challenges as well. Why not paint a true picture of the people you promote as progressive. Look at the plight of the majority population and neighborhoods in Baltimore City? It certainly doesn't look like a city with any true true progressive leadership.

Tate Hausman on 12.14.07:

Respectfully, Nicole, I think you've missed the point of the interview.

MayorTV is an opportunity for Mayors to speak about federal urban policy, especially in the context of the presidential campaigns. It's not about the mayors themselves, or how "progressive" they are. It's about what the Mayors think the next president should do to help cities - where 80% of Americans live - to better grapple with the tough challenges that cities face.

Mayors have unique ability to speak to those challenges ... no matter what kind of political labels people impose on them.

tim mahon on 03.23.08:

I would just like to request a sit down appointment with mayor dixon,knowing that the mayor is totally swamped, so are the rest of the working baltimorians,My concern is that i believe i am now qualifield to have some in-put in balts.decline in rental housing market, as well as first time home buyers.I come today in hopes to sit with some one in charge,LIKE MAYOR DIXON -- PLEASE READ ON, I am 44yrs. old i did 20 years in the states maxium sec.penal system I took part in the first design of the scared strait program in jessup in 1985,I am a felon however i have over came this and now i provide lending for two different morgage comp. i own two bussinesses in west balt. and i provide first time home buying only balt.city( My request is that i have designed a system that will provide first time home buying at 100% finacing to the state employees regaurdless of low credit score..) TRUST ME !!! - Bring me in for a meeting right now i have a investor network of over 100 investors out of the dc. area with investment properties in balt...IN SHORT the balt. market dropped so much that all the fully rehabbed properties of these investors are up for owner occ.-- THOUGHT FOR THE DAY --- ALL RENTERS PAYING 750.00 DOLLARS PER MOUNTH CAN NOW OWN FOR THE SAME AMOUNT -- BUT A NEW REHABBED HOME SWEET,, NOW IF THESE INVESTORS ARE SELLING THESE HOMES THEN THEY ARE GOING TO NEED MORE HOUSE PROJECTS.(REHABS) THIS IS WHERE BALTIMORIANS CAN OWN THERE OWN PROPERTY WITH A 30 YEAR FIXED RATE OF 6% -- I HAVE 150 COMPLETED READY TO BE SOLD BALT. PROPERTIES EVERYONE IS BEING SOLD WITH OVER 30K. IN EQUALLTY--- BUT THIS EQUALTY WILL NOT BE ACCURATE UNTIL SPRING BACK WITH GOV.. IT MUST START WITH IN ---- I HAVE TIME TO COME TO MAYORS OFFICE ANYTIME PLEASE CALL TIM MAHON 410-830-0467 (tmahon@cmortgroup.com ) wk.410-363-6663 thanks i can provide change i have done so!!!!!! tim mahon

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So Many Presidential Debates, So Little Concern Shown for Cities

By Clyde Haberman, New York Times

In mid-October, I noted that the Democrats and Republicans had held 17 or so presidential debates (the number can vary, depending on who’s counting), but that with all the gabbing they managed not to focus on America’s cities.

Well, two months have passed, and that observation is no longer valid.

The candidates have now held 25 or so debates without talking about urban issues.

Someone ought to alert the Guinness people. For sidestepping matters of direct concern to more than 80 percent of the population — people living in urban and suburban areas — this has to be some kind of record.

The grievance is hardly new. But it is glaring this time around because of the large number of candidates who you’d think would have cities and their suburbs high in their minds. Look at them: former mayors of New York City and Cleveland, a senator from New York, a former community organizer out of Chicago.

Sure, they have discussed terrorism, health care, the economy, immigration and other matters that affect cities as much as the rest of the country. But what about basic urban and suburban concerns like housing, transportation, crime, education, Medicaid costs, homelessness, crumbling infrastructure?

There has been barely a word, though blame no doubt lies not only with the candidates but also with debate M.C.’s who ignore these topics.

The silence has not gone unnoticed by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan, though decidedly liberal, New York think tank. (Its name, in case you wondered, is rooted in a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said two months before his assassination in 1968 that he wanted to be remembered as “a drum major for justice.”)

Over the last few weeks, together with The Nation magazine, the institute asked mayors from Miami to Boston, from Baltimore to Los Angeles, for the issues they thought should be on the candidates’ plates.

Ten mayors were interviewed — Atlanta, Buffalo, Denver, Minneapolis, Rochester and Salt Lake City round out the list — and the number may grow. Their comments were videotaped and excerpts posted on a Web site, www.mayortv.com, which the institute hopes to have up and running on Friday.

“Instead of writing a report or issuing a critique or counting the number of times that the presidential candidates have talked about cities, we decided that the voices that really need to be heard are the mayors’ themselves,” said Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Drum Major’s executive director.

All 10 mayors are Democrats or independents, reflecting political realities in many cities. Republican mayors were approached, too, and some expressed interest, Ms. Schlesinger said, but the timing didn’t work out. Maybe later.

One obvious choice would have been Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, a man for all parties (Democrat, born-again Republican, reborn-again independent). “But alas,” Ms. Schlesinger said, his possible involvement “fell through some kind of scheduling black hole.”

Not surprisingly, the mayors’ issues are essentially those mentioned above: housing, infrastructure, economic development, public safety and so on. Loud and clear is their frustration with what they perceive as Washington’s lack of interest in their troubles.

Read the full article at The New York Times >