Slowly Shakes His Head

At the risk of getting Andrew Kujan’s panties all twisted up I have to comment on another untoward going on in that lush, safe, idyll that is the City of Baltimore. Mayor Sheila Dixon’s former campaign manager, Dale Clark, has been charged by State Prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh with failing to pay income taxes for the years 2002-2004. I don’t know if federal charges are pending but rarely to tax cheats stop with anything short of the full monty.

The Maryland state prosecutor charged Mayor Sheila Dixon’s former campaign chairman yesterday with failing to file state income tax returns for three of the six years in which he earned $500,000 working without a contract as the Baltimore City Council’s computer consultant.

This was not just any $500,000 contract. This was a no-bid $500,000 contract issued by Sheila Dixon’s office. This was a contract issued, wait for it, without a contract.

The state probe began in March 2006 after The Sun revealed that Clark’s computer company, Ultimate Network Integration, had been paid nearly $600,000 over six years, mostly without a contract. The Sun also revealed that Dixon’s chief of staff, Beatrice Tripps, in a 2001 e-mail exchange with Clark, discussed a plan to keep payments under $5,000.

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Sheila Dixon’s election will demonstrate the axiom that people get the government they vote for. In this case a racialist kleptocracy. But if we hear the words “plea agreement” in the next month or so in conjunction with this case, the next couple of years could provide us with a lot of good material as a Dixon administration slowly unravels under the weight of its own corruption.