The Baltimore City Council is the legislative branch that governs the City of Baltimore and its nearly 700,000 citizens. Baltimore has fourteen single-member City Council districts and representatives are elected for a four-year term. To qualify for a position on the Council, a person must be twenty-one years of age, a registered voter, a U.S. citizen, and a resident of Baltimore and the district. If a position on the Council is vacated, a new representative from the Council District is elected by a majority vote of the Council. As of 2007 the annual salary for city council member was $57,000.
The Baltimore City Council holds its regular meetings on alternate Monday evenings on the fourth floor of the Baltimore City Hall. The presiding officer is the President of the City Council who is elected at-large. The compensation for the President is (as of 2009) $100,450 a year. The Council has 7 standing committees, all of which must have at least three members.
Read more about Baltimore City Council: History, Records, Current Members of The Baltimore City Council
Famous quotes containing the words baltimore, city and/or council:
“There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)
“There by some wrinkled stones round a leafless tree
With beards askew, their eyes dull and wild
Twelve ragged men, the council of charity
Wandering the face of the earth a fatherless child....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)