(2 of 2)
Baltimore is blessed with a strong mayoral system—and has had a succession of strong mayors. Another key to Schaefer's success is the willing, even ardent cooperation of business, even though Baltimore boasts no big corporate headquarters. The Greater Baltimore Committee, a civic organization of 900 businessmen, is running a "Blue Chip-In" campaign that is expected to raise $500,000 from local firms and create 200 jobs, thus partly offsetting President Reagan's slash in federal outlays for job training. Another group of Baltimore businessmen, taking a cue from a program pioneered in Minneapolis, is lining up some two dozen local firms to contribute up to 5% of their annual taxable income for civic and philanthropic causes. Still, Schaefer says of people and of neighborhoods: "They must show that they will help themselves."
Willie Don Schaefer manages to fit in only one private pastime: raising African violets in his city hall suite. With little time for books, he has never read H.L. Mencken but plans to make the sage's Union Square home a memorial.
His real hobby, of course, is Baltimore. It has been a fruitful one. "Six years ago," he recalls, "I predicted that people would spend vacations in Baltimore. Everyone laughed, but it has been proved true."