Charm City Charmer As a child of Baltimore’s rough and tumble politics, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake knows how to weather the storm. By Aaron Levin ’68 Photograph by Tanya-Rosen Jones ’97 for OAM stephanie rawlings-blake ’92 took office as mayor of baltimore on February 4, 2010, just 36 hours before the arrival of the city’s worst blizzard since 1922. A second blast a few days later left a total of 40 inches of snow on the ground and threatened to paralyze the city. Rawlings-Blake had spent a lifetime waiting for those cold February days, and the trial by blizzard eliminated any hope of gently easing into the mayor’s office. Snowstorms have a history of testing—and occasionally unseating—big city mayors, but Rawlings-Blake did not hesitate to step out onto Baltimore’s streets and demonstrate her understanding of the city’s workings, as well as the pragmatic demeanor that has characterized her administration since. Her 15-year ascendancy through city hall owes something to both chance and forethought. First elected to Baltimore’s City Council in 1995, she was named president in 2007 in a series of next-person-up political shifts when then-mayor Martin O’Malley was elected governor of Maryland and the council president succeeded him in city hall. In 2010, Rawlings-Blake became mayor after her predecessor left office following a conviction on corruption charges. She was elected for a full term in 2011. Her rise to municipal power had deeper personal and political roots, and it involved more than just luck. “I’d wanted to be in public service since elementary school, and I put myself in a position to do it,” she says during 20