I have a few questions about the plea deal Mayor Sheila Dixon agreed to.

First: It has been stated that Ms. Dixon "is on probation" but that it is unsupervised. What does this probation consist of? Is she forbidden to undertake certain activities? Must she refrain from former relationships? What are the restrictions on her everyday life? And, if these activities are unsupervised, how will it be known if Ms Dixon adheres to the terms of the probation?

Secondly, as far as community service is concerned, is she free to choose what she will do to fulfill her obligation? Is she forbidden to perform service for any specific groups? Is she encouraged to do a certain kind of work? And what supervision will this have to assure that the service is bona fide and meets the time requirement? She should perhaps be required to take (and pass) a course in ethics and the law, ethics and government. or just plain ethics. It is appropriate that a public service component be a part of her punishment. This should certainly be a service to the public she wronged. It is important that this Baltimore public be privy to what she will be going through and that she finally concede to accountability and transparency.

And thirdly (perhaps uppermost in my mind) the pension. I do think that Ms. Dixon is entitled to a pension but certainly not the amount cited in all the news reports. I feel she should be made to wait until retirement age to start collecting it. I feel she should receive the portion of the pension she had accrued before her disservice service to city government. I feel that an equitable settlement would be to award her retirement based on what she had before becoming City Council president. I feel that she should be reimbursed for her personal contributions to the retirement fund subsequent to that, but she should not benefit from city matching funds from her years of wheeling, dealing and dipping into the public till for which she has not faced judgment but which amount to far more grievous harm to the city of Baltimore than her misappropriation of gift cards.

Jane W. Dyer, Baltimore

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