Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott will be inaugurated for a second term on Tuesday. He’s the first mayor reelected to a second term in 20 years. Scott’s first-term was marked by crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Key Bridge collapse. His administration has seen high turnover in top offices. But the city has also seen reductions in homicides and vacant housing, issues that have plagued Baltimore for decades.

WYPR’s Emily Hofstaedter spoke with Mayor Scott about his goals for his second term.

Scott: “You need to have that second term, that stability and leadership, because those solutions take time and commitment. I'm just very excited and humbled that the residents of Baltimore elected me to do so again.”

Hofstaedter: One of the things Mayor Brandon Scott is paying particular attention to this term is the loss of Black Baltimoreans, particularly middle-class Black people, who are leaving the city.

Scott: “What folks try to teach me growing up here in Baltimore is that when you become successful and start to make money, you move out right into the county, or into another place, into a suburb that was seen as coming up, so to speak. Because culturally, people have been taught that the places that they come from, the city that they come from, is where you start, but it's not where you finish, right?” 

Hofstaedter: Through continued investment in recreation centers, schools, libraries and other community programs, Scott thinks he can convince Black Baltimoreans the city is a place to stay. But part of that is also tackling vacant housing that makes communities feel derelict and unsafe. The administration reports its reduced vacants by 17 percent and in the second term will go full throttle with BUILD — a $3 billion public, private partnership to reduce vacants.

Scott: “We know that we're at the lowest amount of vacants than we've been in 20 years. But now we have the capital and the partnership with the city, with the state, with our faith partners at BUILD, with GBC, and the business and private partners to get this done, knowing that this won't happen in my term as mayor. We're going to work. This is a 15 year plan. This is the beginning of it, and we're going to make sure that it's in full bloom and people are seeing vacants come down and be replaced with affordable and sustainable housing as we move forward.” 

Hofstaedter: The state has committed $30 million a year. Still, those future home owners will have to contend with Baltimore City’s property taxes — the highest in the state. Scott says that could be offset if Baltimore could keep some of its local sales tax, as it’s one of the few cities in the country that does not. That’s a battle the mayor plans to fight with the General Assembly.

Scott: “If the state will allow us to keep 1% of the local sales tax, that would allow me to immediately give every single homeowner in the city $1,000 off their property taxes.” 

Scott doesn’t firmly commit to a “yes” or “no” on whether his administration would introduce a property tax cut if the state denies the city a portion of sales tax. But he does double down that it's a top priority.

Finally, the administration needs to keep up its efforts to reduce homicide, which are down 30 percent from last year and down 45 percent from 2022. The mayor plans to continue expanding the Group Violence Reduction Strategy, which researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found last year did have an impact on the reduction. Scott wants to spread the program to all nine policing districts and have it ingrained in the practices of the Baltimore City Police Department.

Scott: "Yes, it's the folks at MONSE, BPD and the State's Attorney's Office and the Attorney General's Office and the US Attorney's Office, who are all working through GVRS. But it's also the community violence intervention workers and Safe Streets, And We Our Us and Tendea Family and Uncle T and what he's doing over in East Baltimore, the folks that are doing that work each and every day, it's our police officers every day who are focused on taking guns and people that commit violence off the streets, our detectives who are clearing cases at a higher rate than they have in a long time.”

Mayor Scott will be inaugurated Tuesday during a noon ceremony at the Murphy Fine Arts Center on the campus of Morgan State University.