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THE BALTIMORE SUN NEWS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016 GENERAL ASSEMBLY Stricter asset bill backed by senators Requires convictions before seeking forfeiture By Michael Dresser The Baltimore Sun LLOYD FOXBALTIMORE SUN Candidates for mayor of Baltimore line up to meet the public at the Marble Hill Community Association's mayoral forum at the New Metropolitan Baptist Church, which was moderated by Curtis Johnson. ELECTION 2016 Mayoral candidates clash; poll shows Dixon leading candidates total either have filed or announced their intention to run for the office. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the incumbent, is not seeking re-election. On Tuesday, longtime WBAL news anchor Alan Warden, 79, filed to run as a Republican. He will face Brian Vaeth, a former city firefighter from East Baltimore, in the April 26 primary.

Some of the leading Democrats, meanwhile, have begun purchasing television advertisements. Warnock has begun airing an ad called "This Truck" on Baltimore TV networks, including ABC, CBS and FOX. It depicts him arriving in Baltimore in an old pickup truck with student loans. "I worked hard. I built a business, and now I'm running for mayor because this city needs a leader not a politician one who has created real jobs and opportunities," Warnock states in the ad.

"That's how we're going to turn Baltimore around." Pugh's first TV ad began airing last week. Campaigns must file their financial reports, detailing their contributions, by midnight tonight Dixon, Pugh and Stokes have run against each other before 13 years ago. In 2003, Dixon won a race for City Council president with 54 percent of the vote, compared to 30 percent for Pugh and 15 percent for Stokes. Gonzales also polled the job approval rating of Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby.

He found 59 percent of Baltimore voters approve of Mosby, while 26 percent disapprove. Black voters support Mosby 76 percent to 9 percent, while white voters disapprove of her job performance 62 percent to 23 percent. 'Tor any elected official in any jurisdiction, 59 percent is a strong number," Gonzales said. lbroadwaterbaltsun.com twitter.comlukebroadwater Candidates address crime, the economy and schools By Luke Broadwater The Baltimore Sun Candidates vying to become Baltimore's next mayor clashed Tuesday evening in West Baltimore, offering differing views on how to reduce crime, spur the economy and improve schools. Former Mayor Sheila Dixon, state Sen.

Catherine E. Pugh, City Councilmen Carl Stokes and Nick J. Mosby, lawyer Elizabeth Embry and businessman David L. Warnock were among those debating issues in the forum at the New Metropolitan Baptist Church. Dixon, who resigned in 2010 amid a scandal, cited her recently released plan to reduce violent crime, which decreased under her administration.

"It was my administration that began to reduce crime," she said. "I know what it takes. I have what it takes." Other mayoral candidates participating in the Historic Marble Hill Community Association's "Evening with the Candidates" included Democrats Patrick Gutierrez, Calvin Young, Joshua Harris and Cindy Walsh. Unaffiliated candidates Chukwue-meka Egwu and Laverne Murray also participated. Several candidates referred to the city's large challenges.

Warnock said the mayoral election will determine "how the world will view us." "We are in a state of emergency," said Young, a Harvard-trained engineer, citing the city's soaring murder rate and budget deficit. "We need new, fresh leadership." Gutierrez was the lone candidate to take aim at Dixon, the early front-runner. "I'm fed up with the way the city has been run," he said. "I'm fed up with the way people have been treated. I'm fed up with the way money has been wasted.

Previous mayors have set a very low bar." The forum took place hours before a poll was released showing Dixon maintaining a clear lead in the crowded field. A survey conducted by Gonzales Research Marketing Strategies from Jan. 11 through Jan. 17 showed Dixon leading the race with 27 percent of respondents saying they would vote for her. She was followed by Pugh (18 percent) and Stokes (14 percent).

Mosby was in fourth (7 percent), followed by Embry and Warnock with 5 percent each. About 21 percent of those polled said they were undecided. "Dixon is in a pretty solid place," said Patrick E. Gonzales, who conducted the poll. "You've got five or more candidates breaking up the vote in a way that benefits her.

The question is: Can one of those candidates capture the imagination of enough people that it becomes a two-candidate race?" Dixon enjoys a 14-point advantage over Pugh among black voters and a 7-point lead among women. Those two voting blocs typically represent about two-thirds of Baltimore voters, Gonzales said. Gonzales polled 356 registered Democrats in Baltimore on both landlines and cellphones. The margin of error is 5.3 percentage points. Gonzales' results were similar to those of a November survey conducted for The Baltimore Sun and the University of Baltimore that showed Dixon leading Pugh by 11 points.

"I get the sense the race has been rather steady for a while now," Gonzales said. "But the election is three months from now, and a lot of stuff can happen." The poll comes as the race for mayor is expanding. Twelve Democrats and 21 As a veto override vote looms on a bill to restrict police and prosecutorial powers to seize assets, some Republicans and Democrats are calling for legislation that goes ever further. At a news conference Tuesday in Annapolis, advocates charged that law enforcement officers all too often "rob" citizens of cash and other assets when they suspect them of being involved in drug activity. Sen.

Michael J. Hough, one of the Maryland Senate's most conservative Republicans, has joined forces with Sen. Jamie Raskin, one of its most liberal Democrats, to sponsor legislation clamping down on asset seizures. The legislation goes further than a bill sponsored by Raskin last year that passed the General Assembly before being vetoed by Gov. Larry Hogan at the behest of police chiefs and prosecutors.

Instead of just putting the burden of proof on prosecutors to show that assets are tainted, as last year's bill did, the new measure requires that they convict the person whose cash or other property is seized before they can seek forfeiture. "You never actually have to be charged with a crime or convicted to lose your property," said Hough, who represents Frederick and Carroll counties. "As someone who cares deeply about the Constitution and individual liberty and due process, the current situation is absolutely wrong." Raskin, from Montgomery County, agreed that the state should not forfeit people's property without a conviction. "It is causing a lot of problems in terms of public confidence in government," he said. Current law allows local and state agencies to seize assets from someone even if they're not charged with a crime and it puts the burden on an individual trying to recover assets that they are not ill-gotten gains.

Hogan took no position on the new legislation. "We will wait to see what actually reaches the governor's desk," spokesman Doug Mayer said. The legislation won the backing of Sen. Robert A. Zirldn, the Baltimore County Democrat who chairs the committee that will consider the bill.

Zirldn criticized a recent opinion article written by Harford County State's Attorney Joseph I. Cassilly that argued against an override of Hogan's veto of last year's more limited bill to curbed asset seizures. That bill shifts the burden of proof to the state and prohibits seizures of amounts less than $300 unless the money can be directly tied to drug distribution. In his article, Cassilly, a Republican, argued that the move to override the veto, expected Thursday in the Senate, shows that state lawmakers are "concerned that street level drug dealers will be unable to replace the heroin, crack cocaine and other poisons that the police seize when they arrest the dealers." Zirldn called Cassilly's letter "misleading." "This is not Democrats versus Republicans. This is not us versus them.

It's about the public policy," Zirldn said. But Cassilly said it's unreasonable for prosecutors to have to meet the same burden of proof to confiscate property that they do to obtain a criminal conviction He said there are many cases where the law allows civil sanctions short of jail based on a lower standard of proof. "Everything does not rise and fall based on reasonable doubt," he said. Cassilly charged that lawmakers had spurned prosecutors' efforts to suggest improvements to last year's bill. "We're trying to work with them and they ignore us," Cassilly said.

Tuesday's news conference brought together an unusual coalition that included the libertarian Cato Institute and the Maryland chapters of the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union, which raised alarms about Maryland's use of asset seizures particularly in African-American communities. "I hear so many young men say they were robbed by the police," said Tessa Hill-Aston, president of the Baltimore NACCP, in a movie shown at the news conference. mdresserbaltsun.com twitter.com michaeltdresser After frigid cold, forecasters predict 'major winter storm' By Scott Dance The Baltimore Sun As Baltimore marked its coldest day of the winter Tuesday, the region began closely watching a forecast for what could become its biggest winter storm since 2010. Temperatures reached just 27 degrees Tuesday afternoon at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, after falling to 13 degrees in the early morning hours. It was the coldest high temperature at BWI since last February.

For the second time this winter, the cold prompted some Baltimore City schools to close because they lacked heat. Calverton ElementaryMiddle School, Edgecombe Circle Elementary School and Armistead Gardens ElementaryMiddle closed at noon. The Crossroads School, a charter, also closed, school officials said. Similarly, families in 13 units of Baltimore's Gilmor Homes reported insufficient heat Tuesday, said Tarda Baker, a spokeswoman for Baltimore Housing. Gilmor has more than 500 units in the Sandtown-Winchester community.

Maintenance crews delivered space heaters to 11 of the families, Baker said. Two families weren't home when crews arrived, she said, but the crews will return Still, Craig "Buddy" Gaskins resorted to the oven and stove to warm his home in the complex. "I don't leave it on overnight," he said. "I just knock the chill out and turn it off." He said his heat fails to adequately warm the home, and Baker asked for his information to send a crew. Lows were forecast in the mid- to upper teens early this morning, prompting Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr.

Leana Wen to extend a "Code Blue" advisory through 10 a.m. The declaration urges people to check on vulnerable neighbors and family, and for the homeless to visit city shelters. Temperatures in the 20s and 30s are forecast for the rest of the week, and two chances for snow are forecast. Snow showers are possible this afternoon and evening. Confidence is building, meanwhile, that a strong storm will move up the Atlantic coast Friday and Saturday, carrying with it heavy moisture and meeting cold air over the region.

But that forecast isn't a certainty. The Weather Prediction Center in College Park, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, broadly predicted snowfall on the order of a foot or two along and northwest of Interstate 95 from Washington to New York. The center said Tuesday morning that it has "high confidence in a major winter storm." The National Weather Service is forecasting snow, with some rain mixing in at times, from about midday Friday through Saturday night. The slow movement expected from the storm, plenty of moisture within it and cold air ahead of it "suggest that there is a potential for a major winter storm," weather service forecasters wrote Tuesday afternoon. But, they cautioned, the forecast remains uncertain because it's looking ahead four days.

The weather service's BaltimoreWash-ington forecast office has upgraded its BARBARA HADDOCK TAYLORBALTIMORE SUN Grace Fellner is bundled up as she walks her dog, Alfie, in Hampden on Tuesday morning. Temperatures in the 20s and 30s are forecast for the rest of the week. warnings for a winter storm threat from "moderate" to "high," cautioning of significant travel delays, closures and threats to life and property. AccuWeather.com echoed those concerns, saying winds could be intense along with the snowfall, and Foot's Forecast is predicting a historic storm rivaling those of January 1996 and February 2010, but said forecasts could change in the coming days. The system that is expected to become the storm was crossing from the Pacific into California on Tuesday.

"If the storm develops to its full potential and takes a track just off the Mid-Atlantic and New England coasts, then a blizzard can unfold," AccuWeather forecasters wrote. "The storm could shut down highways and perhaps cause airport closures." Baltimore Sun reporters Tim Prudente and Erica L. Green contributed to this article. sdancebaltsun.com twitter.comMdWeather Video online For video of Tuesday's news conference on asset seizures, visit baltimoresun.com.