The typical script for events like yesterday's, when Mayor Sheila Dixon announced that she would resign from office as part of a plea deal that concludes the years-long investigation into her activities at City Hall, would be to call it a sad day for Baltimore. Tellingly, that was not the word her colleagues used in their carefully calibrated statements. Instead, the word of the day was "difficult," and that seems appropriate. Yesterday was not a sad day for Baltimore. The sad days were the ones when Mayor Dixon took gift cards meant for the poor and spent them on herself, or went on lavish romantic getaways with a developer whose projects she helped award millions in tax breaks. Yesterday was a sad day for Sheila Dixon - she neared tears several times when giving a statement at City Hall - but not for Baltimore. It was a day when the promise of honest service by our elected officials was restored, but it came at a difficult price.

It's debatable whether probation before judgment, a hefty fine and community service are sufficient penalties for Mayor Dixon's crimes of embezzlement and perjury, particularly given that the deal she struck allows her to keep her pension of more than $80,000 a year and, theoretically, run for office again. The fact that taxpayers will be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars for someone who disgraced the offices of City Council president and mayor is particularly galling. Elected officials earn a pension for providing honest service, and Ms. Dixon failed to do that.

What's worse, even as she pledged yesterday to do whatever she could to help the city move on, Mayor Dixon refused to apologize or even to acknowledge that she has done anything wrong. When asked if she owed the city an apology, she replied, "What I owe the city is to move on, bring closure to this." Asked why the citizens had to go through the painful ordeal of the trial, she avoided taking responsibility and instead sought, as she has all along, to blame the prosecutor. The citizens of Baltimore might be willing to forgo the apology if only Ms. Dixon would forgo the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars she expects them to pay.

However, the important thing is that Mayor Dixon has agreed to resign from office as of Feb. 4. If not for this arrangement, she might well have dragged the city through legal limbo for months, and that would have been profoundly harmful. It seemed unlikely that the arguments the mayor's attorneys made in support of her motion for a new trial would have been successful - the judge had already rejected some of the same arguments, and it was hard to see how they added up to an unfair trial. Theoretically, that means Mayor Dixon might have been forced to step aside at her sentencing later this month. But there's no guarantee that she would have. She could have made further arguments about the meaning of a section of the state constitution dealing with crimes by elected officials and stayed in office until someone forced the issue. There's no telling how long that might have lasted.

Even if she had stepped aside after the sentencing, she might still have been able to return to office if the conviction was ever overturned on appeal, as happened briefly in the case of former Gov. Marvin Mandel more than 30 years ago. The mere possibility that such an outcome could occur would have hampered the ability of her successor, City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, to govern. Until all of Ms. Dixon's appeals were exhausted, Ms. Rawlings-Blake would have held the title of acting mayor, hardly a recipe for unfettered leadership.

As it is, Ms. Dixon has taken her first relatively graceful step since the investigation into her affairs began. She can now begin an orderly transition of power to Ms. Rawlings-Blake (preparations for which had not been taking place despite Ms. Dixon's legal jeopardy), and the city can emerge from the taint of corrupt leadership.

The point of the case against Ms. Dixon was never the relative seriousness of the criminal charges she faced. It didn't matter whether it was embezzlement of $600 or $6 million. The point was that she had abused a position of public trust. By that same token, the point of the penalty Ms. Dixon should face is not the size of the fine, the number of hours of community service or whether she ever sees the inside of a jail cell. It is to remove her from that position of public trust. Her pension is an ugly price to pay to ensure that bit of justice is done promptly and smoothly, but the benefit of immediately restoring honest leadership outweighs that cost.

Readers respond

The prosecutor should be fired for giving the mayor such a sweet deal. Mayor Dixon stole from the poor, lied about it, steered contracts to her lover, etc. The city is on the hook for millions of dollars for her pension. If the mayor lives 20 more years, which is highly likely, the taxpayers of Baltimore will by on the hook for $1.6 million or more in pension payments.

I am disgusted. The legal system did not work here. It is galling that the mayor bought her way out of trouble.

Jon Berry

Despite an excellent education, I can't put the disillusionment that I have with the justice system into words.

Paul

After being found guilty of a criminal act by a jury of her peers, Mayor Dixon decides to enter into a plea agreement with the prosecution. According to the terms of the plea agreement, the mayor agrees not to appeal the conviction, and the court decides to grant her probation before judgment, which takes the guilty verdict off her record, allowing her to collect an $80,000 a year pension and preventing her from running for public office for all of two years.

Who ever heard of a defendant in a criminal trial getting a sweetheart plea agreement such as this after the jury finds her guilty of the crime?

Something smells fishy to me. In my opinion it looks like business as usual in Baltimore politics. This deal just doesn't pass the smell test.

Murray Spear

As a suburbanite, I have watched the Dixon affair with sadness and dismay. The mayor seems to have been doing a rather effective job of leading the city in positive directions, and it's sad to see her brought down by what really amount to rather picayune allegations as compared with what goes on in many jurisdictions.

I believe that the prosecutor, while doing his job, has harmed the city more than helped it. A sad thing all around.

Chuck Burton

Classic case of "the chickens coming home to roost." When did it begin, the scheming, underhanded, behind closed door deals? I thought that this woman had class and character. I am so disappointed on a deeply personal level. I hate the fact that she will receive a pension from taxpayers for the next thirty years - just one more thing from a corrupt system.

Fatima Wilson