Why Mayor Brandon Scott has Cleveland’s mayor on speed dial

Mayor Brandon Scott popped in a bright-pink suit, simple starched button-up shirt and white sneakers as he sat before a hushed crowd at the Pendry hotel in Fells Point.

He and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb were about to discuss the most pressing challenges for their post-industrial cities. But first, a sartorial wisecrack.

“Mayor Scott wore his Easter suit, so I missed the memo,” moderator and Wall Street executive Raymond J. McGuire quipped.

“It’s salmon,” Scott clarified.

Bibb saw an opening.

“What did you call it, a suit, huh?” he said with a chuckle. “I’m just playing.”

Scott shot back: “This is a winning suit. Something that Cleveland wouldn’t know about.”

Bibb wasn’t done: “Oh, because he stole my football team, that’s why.”

With the arrogance of a poker player holding a winning hand, Scott responded: “Sorry, not sorry.”

The playful banter set the tone for a lively discussion — and nudged into public view an important friendship in politics. Scott, 42, and Bibb, 39, are some of the youngest Black mayors ever elected to lead their cities.

They’re part of a “natural brotherhood,” the Baltimore mayor said in an interview later.

“There hasn’t been that many of us in the history of the country,” Scott said. “So that’s what you saw.”

Of the nation’s 50 most populous cities, 14 are led by Black mayors, according to the African American Mayors Association. This month, Scott was sworn in as president of organization, which includes more than 500 leaders of cities of all sizes.

Scott and Bibb are both active on a group chat comprising Black male mayors from larger metropolitan cities, they said. Black female mayors have a similar chat.

“It’s essential for your well-being, for your development,” Bibb said in an interview. “It’s been a lifeline and a blessing to have a group of Black male mayors who we can confide in and talk about the stresses and the realities of the job, but also share in the positive aspects of the job as well too.”

Scott and Bibb have known each other since Bibb was elected in November 2021. The two are “very comfortable” with each other, Scott said.

That easy relationship was on full display during their half-hour conversation during Big Bets for America, a roving conference sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Baltimore was its second stop, and Cleveland is up next.

During the conversation, Scott questioned Bibb’s taste in music when he named Drake among his top five music rotation.

Days later, Scott said he was “really shocked” someone from Cleveland, home of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, would say that Drake is heavy in their playlist.

“If you get Black men that are friends around each other, there’s going to be joking, right? Scott said of the stage interplay. ”It’s just like we’re brothers, right?”

But they’re also there for one another during harder times.

“We do lean on each other. We do go visit each other to learn and lift up the work,” Scott said. “And I think it’s always good for people to see that leaders of cities are communicating.”

Scott has faced racially charged criticism throughout his career. From the Key Bridge collapse to as recently as a controversial video and AI image shared by Baltimore City Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming that led to her apology. Scott’s office categorized the image as “racist.” Bibb said he has watched what Scott has endured with disgust.

“I get that on a different level,” Bibb said. “In Cleveland because of my race people question my ability to lead, they question my decisions. They assume because I’m Black that I’m corrupt. I’ve gotten racist mail from across the country. And that’s the common refrain and experience from a lot of my fellow Black colleagues leading cities in this challenging time.”

Bibb said the best way to counteract racist assumptions is bold action.

“Like Brandon, I think we have the receipts in Cleveland about the work we’re doing to reduce crime, the work we’re doing to bring back jobs, the work we’re doing to put Cleveland back on the map,” Bibb said. “That the work speaks for itself.”

At the Big Bets conference, Scott told the audience that he wanted to be the mayor of Baltimore from age 6 after watching someone get shot, “and no one in my neighborhood cared.”

Scott told the audience that in 18 of his 42 years, the city had more than 300 homicides a year.

“Every year for the first year and a half that I was in office, all I heard was ‘Mr. Mayor, what are you going to do to get us under 300?’” he recalled.

When his administration released its violence reduction plan, the aim was to reduce homicides and shootings by 15% a year.

“People laughed at us and [said] there was no way it was going to happen,” Scott said. “And now here we are.”

Scott touted last year’s 50-year low homicide number: 133.

Although, he added: “133 is still [too many] for me.”

Bibb said Cleveland saw a 30% decline in homicides during his first term.

“Mayor Scott is someone we all look up to when it comes to public safety,” Bibb said.

Scott also told the conference about the city’s work to reduce the number of vacant properties in Baltimore. There were about 16,000 when he was sworn into office in December 2020, and the mayor’s office now says there are fewer than 12,000.

“I think we have proven that change is possible in America’s legacy cities,” Bibb said.

Scott all but gushed about his positive relationship with Gov. Wes Moore — saying the two regularly communicate. He also said Baltimore is finally in a place to have a good relationship with the governor after eight years when that was not the case.

Bibb did not address the realities of working within a Republican-dominated state led by Gov. Mike DeWine during the conference.

“This is the time for Baltimore, because we’re striking on all the things that people said that we could not do,” Scott said.

A few days after the conference, Bibb joined Scott’s recurring pick-up basketball game.

Held at an undisclosed location, there was plenty of trash talking leading up to the game, both admitted. But they wound up on the same team.