The full story behind the vacancy nominating committee's selection of Pete Welch

This entry could also be titled: "The City Council screwed Michael Johnson".

You can read other stories about this vote here, here, here, and here.

I arrived at city hall right before 5PM on Thursday. The vacancy nominating committee was supposed to vote on who they wanted to fill the empty 9th District seat at 5PM.  A budget meeting ran late and was still going on when I arrived in the balcony area of the Du Burns Council Chamber. The budget meeting deserves its own post. Mary Pat Clarke demonstrated some incredible budgetary ignorance.  Stay tuned for more on that in the future.

The budget hearing ended at 5:50 and you could tell Jack Young wanted to get this vote over with. There was no break. It was announced that the 12 council-member (Rikki Spector and Helen Holton were the only council-people not on the nominating committee) committee would vote after candidate nominations were made. I knew something was fishy at this point. They could have easily just had a vote where all four candidates automatically became the only people you could vote for. Since a candidate needed to be nominated Jack Young asked for nominations. Robert Curran nominated Pete Welch and Nick D'Adamo seconded the nomination!

How sick! The most outspoken Welch "fan" who happens to be part of a political monarchy of his own makes the nomination and the soon to be retired D'Adamo seconds it without any fear of future political ramifications.  

Jim Kraft said he wanted there to be more than one option. He nominated Abigail Breiseth! Huh? No offense to Abigail Breiseth, but she appeared to be the least likely to win a 9th district election. I find it hard to fathom that the people of her district would favor her over the other three candidates.  If the council selected Breiseth there would have been an uproar from the NAACP and rightfully so. Mary Pat Clarke seconded the nomination.

What did not happen next was the biggest embarrassment of the entire night. No member of Baltimore's City Council stepped up and nominated Michael Johnson! Johnson is the only person out of the four candidates who has EVER received a single vote from a citizen of the 9th district in a real election. He came in second place with 1135 votes in the 2007 primary election in the 9th District. You mean to tell me that every single one of the members of the City Council felt those 1135 votes meant nothing?  

Johnson and Bullock spoke the truth when they were interviewed by the council on Tuesday night. They called the council out and said that the decision had already been made. They were right. The council did not appreciate the truth being told in a way that rightfully embarrassed them so they paid Johnson back by not even nominating him. Of course none of the council-people who MADE A DEAL with Agnes Welch before she retired would have ever nominated Johnson because AGNES WELCH HATES MICHAEL JOHNSON. How dare someone run against Dear Leader Welch.

Breiseth was a good girl and played nice so she was allowed to play the role of the Washington Generals in this farce. Once again I need to stress that Breiseth was just a pawn in all this, she did not do anything wrong. I am sure Pete Welch is happy that this entire show might even give her some minor momentum and take away votes from Johnson in September.

So with only two candidates nominated the council-members would have an easy time explaining their Welch votes. Why on earth would they pick a inexperienced white woman with little city council financial knowledge over the experienced financially savvy (in many ways apparently) Welch? Kraft, Clarke, and Bill Henry ended up voting for Breiseth! Henry paused a bit before he voted. When Bill Cole voted for Welch he also paused and appeared, sad, uncomfortable, and disturbed. I don't think he expected this scenario to take place.

Clarke later said she voted against Welch because of his background. That definitely was the right thing to say and she deserves credit for saying it. A part of me thinks she did not like him because he refused to support her financially crippling living wage idea.

The City Council will officially vote to fill the seat on Monday. Since the official recommendation is Welch that means Spector and Holton will also vote for him and he will win no matter what. I think it is possible since the inevitable is now obvious that the entire City Council may end up voting for Welch on Monday. It really does not matter now though. Robert Curran and his big mouth and Agnes Welch are the ultimate villains in this story. Robert Curran should be made to politically pay dearly for this injustice. Unfortunately all the other council-people have legitimate excuses because of the two candidate scenario that the committee's procedures so conveniently brought about.

The vote itself would have only taken less than a minute had it not been for the imbecile of the council Warren Branch. Branch AGAIN felt the need to explain why he felt recommendation letters and emails of support were important.  Branch is an embarrassment to Baltimore and I feel bad for anyone who has to sit through one of his cringe-worthy "performances".

Curran and Branch should be targeted for removal and their opponents in 2011 should be supported. I will do my part. More information will be provided soon enough.

There is one positive that came out of all of this. Agnes Welch is gone!

Michael Johnson's campaign page can be found here.