Mayoral Candidate DeRay Mckesson
Baltimore – Activist-turned-mayoral candidate DeRay Mckesson on Feb. 12 released the first parts of a comprehensive plan detailing what he’d do if elected. The plans were posted on his website, derayformayor.com, which was unveiled at the same time.
McKesson tackles the issues of education and youth development, community prosperity and safety in his plans and said he wanted his agenda to be the most detailed and nuanced in the race.
“I want to make sure that this is the most informed platform possible,” Mckesson told the AFRO.
The young activist, who has been an outspoken member of the nationwide movement against police brutality, calls for major changes to Baltimore City policing that includes advocating for the full repeal of the Maryland Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights. He would require that police officers submit to drug and alcohol testing following incidents involving deadly force. He would also enact an ordinance making chokeholds and “rough rides” illegal.
Mckesson said the things he saw growing up in Baltimore City influenced his feelings about policing.
“There are many good people who don the blue and the badge,” he said. But, the current way of policing does not “set them up for success.”
“There can be a police department that partners with and protects instead of harming. I am of the core belief that the issue of safety is more than the police. It’s about kids, it’s about education, it’s about public health. When you close your eyes and imagine the space where you are most safe it’s not a room full of police officers.”
Mckesson is not a stranger to administration: He has worked for Baltimore City Public Schools as special assistant to the chief human capital officer. He also served as senior human capital director for Minneapolis Public Schools.
Mckesson graduated from Catonsville High School before going on to earn a bachelor’s degree in government and legal studies from Bowdoin College in Maine, according to his LinkedIn page.
He has served as a member of the Maryland Advisory Board on After-School Opportunity Programs, has taught in New York City as a part of the Teach for America program and has worked as a director at the Baltimore branch of the youth program Higher Achievement.
“We believe that through strategic partnership and investment, increased transparency, and the heightened coordination of city-provided services in response to family needs we can catalyze change and lay the groundwork for reconfiguring the role of City Hall in the support and governance of City Schools,” he writes on his website.
His education and youth development plans would target children from birth to high school graduation. He would like to increase the reach of the B’More for Healthy Babies Initiative and expand full-day public pre-kindergarten for low-income 3-4-year-olds. He is also calling for things like scholarships and mentoring for city teens going off to college and training programs to increase the number of skilled laborers in the city. He would also like to work with lawmakers in Baltimore and in Annapolis to increase the amount of funding available to city schools.
His community prosperity plan looks to make it easier for Baltimoreans to get work, and allow them to earn more by increasing the minimum wage to $15.
“I am not naive to the fiscal constraints of the city budget nor do I believe that the path to prosperity can be shortened through tax breaks and traditional developer tax incentives. I believe that the pathway to community prosperity starts when we reduce the barriers that make it difficult for individuals to find and maintain jobs and open up businesses,” he writes on the website.
McKesson is running as a Democrat. The city’s mayoral primary is April 26.
