Annapolis Capital Punishment

By Arundel Muckraker and Annapolis Capital Punishment

A city employee in charge of helping minority-owned businesses get on their feet wants $1 million from Annapolis for racial discrimination. Ruby Singleton Blakeney, Annapolis’ director of Small and Minority Business Enterprise Development, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and her boss, Mike Miron. In papers filed with the U.S. District Court in Baltimore on Nov. 4, Blakeney complained about "racial harassment and disparate treatment by my superior, Mike Miron Director of the Office of Economic Development.” The official title has since been changed to the Office of Economic Affairs.


The events took place between July 2003 and the present, she claims. She is also asking for costs and attorney's fees. Blakeney wouldn’t comment when reached by Capital Punishment nor would she divulge her lawyer's name. The City of Annapolis has not yet been served with the lawsuit, according to the City's Public Information Officer Rhonda Wardlaw. The county NAACP did not respond to email and phone messages for comment.

Blakeney filed paperwork with the Maryland Commission on Human Relations in December last year, detailing the alleged discrimination. "I am Black and have been subjected to ongoing harassment from the Director of Economic Development, Mike Miron,” she wrote. “Mr. Miron has made my working conditions intolerable, treated white employees more favorably and made inappropriate and racially insensitive comments to me and about me. I have made numerous complaints about my interactions with Mr. Miron, but the harassment has continued."

The federal complaint, which was hand-written, was stamped "At Baltimore Clerk US District Court District of Maryland, Night Drop Box" on Nov. 04. That would appear to be just after the deadline stated in a "Notice of Right to Sue Within 90 Day" letter sent by certified mail on July 31, 2008 to Blakeney by the US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. Blakeney apparently either waited until the last minute or actually missed the deadline, even though her complaint with Maryland was filed almost one year prior.

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