Dem. Baltimore Mayor takes leave of absence amid book scandal

Democrat Mayor Catherine Pugh

Democrat Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, [did I mention, she's a Democrat], will take an indefinite leave of absence – but still collect her $185,000 a year salary – due to her “deteriorating" health, and not because she is immersed in a scandal over a deal she and the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) struck, she claims.

The deal with UMMS and Democrat Pugh is worth $500,000 for copies of a CHILDREN'S BOOK which now sit in a warehouse, undistributed.

Coincidentally, Pugh was a member of the UMMS board, and had a business deal where approximately 100,000 copies of her children’s book [ironically titled], “Healthy Holly,” would be purchased and distributed to schools and daycare centers.

About 8,700 of those books now sit in a warehouse owned by the Baltimore school system. A spokeswoman told the Sun that she could not find documentation for the books but that an “unsolicited” shipment was delivered sometime between 2011 and 2013.

Two weeks ago, Pugh resigned from the UMMS board and last week apologized for the deal she made over the books. Well, now that she said she's sorry, let's not punish her with any of those annoying legalities involving any wrongdoing. She's sorry, and that should be enough. In fact, that's the ploy ISIS bride Hoda Muthana is using.

“I sincerely want to say that I apologize that I have done something to upset the people of Baltimore,” Pugh understated at a press conference on March 28. “I never intended to do anything that could not stand up to scrutiny.”

She was hoping to not get caught.

The scandal comes from Pugh’s no-bid deal, which she didn’t report as income on her annual General Assembly financial disclosure forms, according to the Washington Post. She later amended the forms after the Sun’s reporting.

Now her office claims that she was hospitalized for five days last week (apparently before the press conference) for pneumonia and will be taking a leave of absence to recover which should take forever.

“With the mayor’s health deteriorating, she feels as though she is unable to fulfill her obligations as mayor of Baltimore city,” said a statement published by the Sun. “To that end, Mayor Pugh will be taking an indefinite leave of absence to recuperate from this serious illness.”

The statement, according to the Sun, naturally didn't mention the book scandal and comes at a time when Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has called for a criminal investigation into Pugh’s book deal. Hogan has asked the office of the state prosecutor to open a criminal investigation into Pugh’s actions, which, according to Maxine Waters, is racist and that Hogan should be impeached.

City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young will serve as the interim mayor while Pugh recovers, which will be sometime in her next life. [BTW, nobody knows how he got "Jack" as a nickname.]

In addition to her sweetheart deal with the UMMS, Pugh was also paid more than $100,000 by the health insurer Kaiser Permanente for copies of her books between 2015 and 2018. Coincidentally, in 2017, Kaiser was awarded a $48 million contract with Baltimore to provide city employees health insurance. At the time of the deal, Pugh controlled the city’s spending board, according to the Sun.

When Pugh resigned from the UMMS board, she also repaid $100,000 from the book deal but she was laughing all the way to the bank.

Pugh, according to The Post, is “the second Baltimore mayor in the past decade to be navigating a corruption scandal; Democrat Sheila Dixon resigned from office in 2010 after being convicted of embezzlement.”

Ahh, those Democrats.


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