Ex-stadium chief feared O’Malley’s retribution

Personal notes and memoranda written in 2006 by Alison Asti show that she thought she was about to be fired as executive director of the Maryland Stadium Authority because she had declined to support then-Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley’s campaign for governor.

The documents, obtained this month by The Washington Times, follow other examples in which senior state officials — Democrats and Republicans alike — have said they were threatened with dismissal for failing to politically support Mr. O’Malley.

Mrs. Asti was appointed director of the Stadium Authority by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, a Republican, in 2004. Her five-year, $1 million contract was declared invalid, and she was removed from the job in September 2007, 10 months after Mr. O’Malley’s election.

“Mayor O’Malley personally called me today to ask me if I would support his candidacy for governor,” Mrs. Asti wrote in a letter of memorandum about a 2006 conversation with Mr. O’Malley at the time of his campaign. “I advised that I do not get involved in politics and am all about substance.”

In a subsequent, undated personal note that she kept as executive director, Mrs. Asti said a mutual friend of hers and the governor’s told her that the call from Mr. O’Malley had been her “chance” to save her job.

“I took that to mean that I would be fired as punishment for not agreeing to support the governor’s campaign,” wrote Mrs. Asti, a Democrat.

Mr. O’Malley was approached about Mrs. Asti’s accusations after a press conference in Baltimore on Tuesday, but a spokeswoman said Mr. O’Malley could not take any more questions because he had to catch a flight to Pittsburgh to campaign for presidential candidate Barack Obama. An O’Malley spokesman declined to comment for this article.

At the time of Mrs. Asti’s firing, Mr. O’Malley told The Times that he was looking for state employees who are “committed to the mission of this administration.” In the case of independent boards whose members are not appointed by the governor, “it will take a little longer than in direct appointments,” he said.

Other state officials have leveled charges similar to Mrs. Asti’s against the governor.

Former Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, who ran against Mr. O’Malley in the 2006 Democratic primary, told The Washington Times last month that the governor threatened to fire him from his job at the University of Maryland if he appeared at a dinner with Mr. Ehrlich. Mr. Duncan later recanted the statement through a university spokesman but resigned last week.

This summer, board members of the multibillion-dollar University of Maryland Medical System said they were pressured to hire a candidate favored by Mr. O’Malley as their new chief executive officer. Members who voted instead for an Ehrlich supporter were told by a top O’Malley aide to resign the day after the vote, The Washington Times reported.

Mrs. Asti declined to speak to The Times for this story. However, former authority board Chairman Robert L. McKinney and former board member Denny Mather said Mrs. Asti had distributed identical notes to members of the board immediately after her ouster.

Mr. McKinney said he had urged Mrs. Asti after the initial call from Mr. O’Malley to keep notes about her interactions with his administration.

Mr. Mather said Mrs. Asti also had spoken with board members about the call from Mr. O’Malley. He said she also had been asked to contribute to his campaign.

In her notes, Mrs. Asti said she thought Mr. O’Malley also held a grudge against her for being “too close” to former Gov. William Donald Schaefer and Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos — two of Mr. O’Malley’s most vocal adversaries.

Story Continues →