The mayor of Baltimore tried to reach me on New Year's Eve - not because she needed someone to escort her to a party, but because she heard I was gathering information for a column about the closing of the Safeway supermarket in Mount Clare Junction.

There was a mix-up with cell phone numbers - my fault - and we did not connect before deadline. But I could tell from the brief message she left on my newsroom phone that Sheila Dixon was concerned about losing the largest and oldest tenant of the 22-year-old shopping center on the city's southwest side.

She might have been a little concerned about being left out of the story, too.

A deputy mayor, Andrew Frank, spoke for the administration with an e-mail about the city's ongoing efforts to attract more supermarkets, particularly to under-served areas.

I had requested comment from Mr. Frank because he's the deputy mayor for neighborhoods and economic development - and because, as everyone including Jay Leno knows, Ms. Dixon has been distracted over the last few months.

She's only mayor for another week, but she's still trying to stay on top of things - and punching back when she thinks she's been the target of a cheap shot.

She called me again Tuesday. Ms. Dixon thought my online column that day was out of line.

What can I say? It appears to me that that City Hall wants to end its efforts to help the last of the a-rabs and preserve the horse-drawn vendor tradition.

It wasn't always that way. In 2007, a deputy housing commissioner promised to find the remaining a-rabs a new stable, and Mr. Frank said Mayor Dixon was "committed to finding a solution."

But no solution has been found, and now the city wants $500 for each of the a-rab ponies or horses it seized in November when it shut down a temporary stabling area under a bridge near Fulton Avenue. This could cost one a-rab family $7,500 and put it out of business for good.

In Tuesday's column, I suggested the incoming mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, enlist the help of concerned citizens who have been successful in business and want to see a-rabbing survive. That's what Sheila Dixon, the almost-former mayor, should have done.

She called me up, unhappy with the assertion that her administration had not done enough.

"I really take offense in how you portrayed me," she said in a voice mail. "I can't begin to tell you the magnitude of what I attempted to do - to work with [a-rabs], to try and raise money, over and over and over again, with resistance from members of the Board of Estimates, who felt that [it] shouldn't even have been pursued.

"I know about the a-rabbers. I tried to save them. We attempted to work with them.

"This third time, the way they treated those animals was the straw that broke the camel's back. Helping them find a partner, to raise some money and come up with a business plan, to help them find a facility - that was a great, driving passion. For you to [write] an article about my trial and all of that - that has nothing to do with it. I'm very disheartened."

The mayor called again Tuesday night. She repeated the reference to "the way they treated those animals," as if chronic mistreatment of the horses by their owners had been established. In fact, in 2007, when the city condemned the Retreat Street stable, it was because of the building's decrepit condition; the horses and ponies were in good shape.

In November, the Humane Society got into the act, and the city seized 19 animals. The severity of the alleged mistreatment is questionable, but its implication allows the city or the animal-rights crowd to say that this Baltimore tradition needs to end, once and for all. That seems to be what's happening.

Mr. Frank, in an e-mail Tuesday, reported that the city had been "days away" from a deal to grant the B&O; Railroad Museum $400,000 to build a new a-rab stable on its property. But, he said, the deal collapsed after city health officials found problems with the care of the animals.

So, as always, it's the a-rabs who are to blame for their own demise.

Not the city. And certainly not Baltimore's distracted - and almost former - mayor.

Dan Rodricks' column appears Thursdays and Sundays in print and online, and Tuesdays online-only. He is host of the Midday talk show on WYPR-FM.

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