Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott (D) and Montgomery County Executive Marc B. Elrich (D) have each brought on new communications professionals in their teams — and Elrich’s hire has had a trickle-down effect in Howard County.
Scott announced this week that Cal Harris will serve as his communications director at City Hall. Harris has held a range of jobs with campaigns and media consulting firms and most notably, in Scott’s view, worked in recent years to elect two young Black mayors, Frank Scott Jr. of Little Rock, Ark., and Randall Woodfin of Birmingham, Ala.
Cal Harris (above), the new communications director for Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott (D). City government photo.
“Cal Harris understands cities and is passionate about executing strategies to engage the people and places most often overlooked in democracy,” Scott said in a statement. “He is committed to building an accessible and responsive city government that reflects the plight of everyday Baltimore residents, and I look forward to his perspective and expertise in my administration.”
As a principal at Pine Street Strategies, Harris advised several Black mayors across the nation on messaging, storytelling, and communications strategy, Scott’s office said. During the 2020 election cycle, he served as senior campaign adviser for Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway (D) and as a regional communications director for Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.
Harris will lead a communications team that includes Stefanie Mavronis as deputy communications director, who has been serving as acting communications director, and Sydney Burns as press secretary.
In Montgomery County, Elrich has brought on Scott Peterson, who had been communications director to Howard County Executive Calvin Ball III (D), to be his manager of media relations.
The job reunites Peterson with Barry Hudson, Montgomery County’s director of Public Information. They worked together in the press shop of then-Prince George’s County executive Rushern L. Baker III (D).
In Montgomery County, Hudson will head the multi-faceted Public Information department, while Peterson will be more involved in Elrich’s day-to-day press relations.
Peterson has even more government communications experience. He previously worked for then-Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon (D). And before then, he worked on Capitol Hill as a network spokesman for C-SPAN.
“I don’t think I could have been as effective going from Prince George’s to Montgomery County without the experience of having worked with Howard County,” Peterson said. “I am very appreciative to County Executive Ball and very fortunate to have worked for and learned from him, County Executive Baker, and Mayor Dixon over the last 12 years. I look forward to working with County Executive Elrich and his team and appreciate the opportunity to serve the residents of Montgomery County.”
No word yet on who will fill Peterson’s job in Howard County.
Josh Kurtz
Founding editor
Founding Editor Josh Kurtz is a veteran chronicler of Maryland politics and government. He began covering the State House in 1995 for The Gazette newspapers, and has been writing about state and local politics ever since. He was an editor at Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, for eight years, and for eight years was the editor of E&E Daily, which covers energy and environmental policy on Capitol Hill. For 6 1/2 years Kurtz wrote a weekly column on state politics for Center Maryland and has written for several other Maryland publications as well. Kurtz regularly gives speeches and appears on TV and radio shows to discuss Maryland politics.
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