Mark Gail/WASHINGTON POST - Prince Georges County Executive Rushern Baker marks his first year in office Tuesday.
It was just after he took office a year ago that Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III began to have trouble sleeping.
The late hours would slip by as he lay awake after his family had already gone to bed. He would run through a mental checklist of problems: a succession of daily homicides, perpetual government incompetence, troubled public schools, an unexpected $77 million budget gap.
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His insomnia deepened as he struggled to form his team and finesse a blueprint to attract new businesses to the county shortly after his predecessor, Jack B. Johnson, and Johnson’s wife, Leslie, newly elected to the council, were arrested. Both were charged in a federal corruption probe that suggested the county government was up for sale.
For the first time, Baker questioned why he wanted the job, which he had sought twice before, losing both times to Johnson. The Johnsons are expected to be sentenced this week.
“Things really looked bad, especially the way the year started,” Baker said in an interview, recalling his first year in office. “The first three months of the job were really hard. I could not sleep. It looked to other people that we had put ourselves in the position that we are in.”
Baker (D) had run — against then-Sheriff Michael Jackson, backed by Johnson — on a platform promising more government accountability, safe neighborhoods and economic development, and he thought he had finally connected with voters. A well-regarded former state legislator, he planned to tap his connections in Annapolis and Washington to help the county gain more clout. But the Johnsons’ arrests generated a political firestorm, leaving Baker the task of trying to persuade Wall Street bond raters as well as state and federal officials that despite the unfortunate publicity, the county was truly entering a new era.
“When I first took office, I thought I would come in every day and run the government,” Baker recently told a West Laurel audience. “I do that. But about 90 percent of my job is selling Prince George’s County.”
Despite the challenges of his first year in office, Baker has made some headway.
He won passage of an ethics bill in Annapolis despite opposition from some council members; persuaded the council to approve a $50 million fund to lure and retain businesses; worked with Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) on a new $600 million hospital and wrested additional funds from the state for county public schools.
“It showed that we got it,” he said, “that this administration would be serious about reforming Prince George’s County.”
Del. Melony G. Griffith (D-Prince George’s), chairman of the county’s House delegation in Annapolis, gives Baker high marks for his work on health care. “I have been incredibly impressed with the way he has taken the issue of health care and elevated it to the level of importance that I believe is unprecedented in that office,” she said.
Focus on schools
In his second year, Baker plans to focus more on the county’s public schools. He is moving ahead with plans to set up an education liaison in his office — something the elected school board is anxious about.
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