Word: schaefer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Schaefer, who moved temporarily to the department of human resources, is proud of his shake-up. Taking over a Cabinet colleague's desk, he believes, brings in fresh eyes and can inject new ideas into stale bureaucracy. He devised the plan while he was mayor of Baltimore from 1971 to 1987 because the city's departments "did not know they were interdependent." When he first proposed the idea to city officials, he recalls, "they thought it was silly. But the second time we got good results...
State officials were no less skeptical the first time Schaefer scrambled the chairs of 31 Cabinet members three years ago. Even this year, there was some foot dragging. "I bitched my head off, but it was an eye opener for everybody," says director of public relations Lainy LeBow, who also went to the human resources department. "I'll be the first to sign up next time." Some of the officials grumbled over the added hours, but most of their anxiety was about outsiders' big-footing on their territory. Everybody in Annapolis remembers the last swap, in 1988, when housing secretary...
Marylanders have learned to expect the unexpected from Schaefer, a Democrat who is serving his second four-year term. A 69-year-old bachelor with a hot temper and a flair for the flamboyant, he made headlines in February by granting clemency to eight women convicted of murdering men who had abused them. In the notoriously corrupt politics of Maryland, he remains squeaky clean, an unpolished zircon who spends as many nights in the working-class row house he has lived in all his life as he does in the 53-room official mansion that was redecorated by his close...
Despite a long career in local and state government, Schaefer has never developed a tolerance for red tape. During his temporary stewardship at the department of human resources last month, he encountered the kind of bureaucratic bottleneck that irks him. An office had run out of food-stamp forms. "I asked why," says the Governor, "especially since the forms came from an office not 20 feet away." A clerk told him they were "supposed to come through the system," at which Schaefer snapped, "Why don't you just walk over and get them?" She did. On a more sympathetic note...
...Schaefer rates his latest swap at the top a clear success, with high marks for the first sit-in Governor, Shaila Aery. He concurred with her advice to stay away from the prison during last month's hostage crisis. The strategy worked: after 23 hours the guards were quietly freed...