One of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s most loyal and long-serving aides and speechwriters – Ryan O’Doherty – will be leaving the administration on July 30, it was announced today via a late afternoon email.

The 35-year-old press secretary, who was paid $107,000 a year, will be replaced on an interim basis by Travis Tazelaar, who recently succeeded Ian T. Brennan as deputy director for communications. (Brennan left the mayor’s press office in May to become chief spokesman for the Fire Department whose boss, James S. Clack, will leave the administration a few days before O’Doherty on July 26.)

In his five years in city government, O’Doherty worked exclusively for Rawlings-Blake, first as her spokesman when she was city council president, then as her press chief when she succeeded Sheila Dixon, who pleaded guilty to a corruption charge, and became mayor in February 2010.

Trusted Aide with Big Portfolio

The younger brother of noted political insider Damian O’Doherty, co-founder of Baltimore-based KO Public Affairs, Ryan O’Doherty will become director of external affairs and strategic communications for Mercy Health Services.

In so doing, he’ll follow in the footsteps of ex-Deputy Mayor Christopher Thomaskutty, who bailed out of the Rawlings-Blake administration last year to become Mercy’s vice president for corporate affairs.

“Ryan has been a diligent public servant, helping to advance my agenda,” the mayor said in the e-mailed press release. “I wish him the best as he pursues this new opportunity. He will be a great asset in any organization he serves.”

O’Doherty took pride in his dual role as the mayor’s director of policy (as well as communications) and was deeply involved in crafting her public responses to crime, public safety, economic development, vacant housing and other issues.

He played a key role in devising the mayor’s “Growing 10,000 New Families” campaign (hatched by Rawlings-Blake’s former chief of staff, Peter O’Malley) and worked industriously on the 10-year financial plan announced by the mayor earlier this year.

Keeping the Mayor on Message

A devout Democrat with a supply-side bent, O’Doherty did not hesitate to upbraid any member of the media – as well as elected officials such as City Comptroller Joan Pratt – who he thought had misrepresented or criticized the mayor’s positions.

He was known for his brusque announcement, “We’ll take one more question for the mayor,” during press conferences after Rawlings-Blake read a statement that was vetted – and typically composed – by O’Doherty himself.

Prior to working for Rawlings-Blake, O’Doherty gained notoriety during his brief tenure as director of communications and research for the Maryland Democratic Party, where he was linked by The Washington Post and WBAL to a dirty-tricks campaign involving MD4BUSH.

O’Doherty also served as deputy director of communications for Cardinal William Keeler, the former Archbishop of Baltimore, and as a government relations specialist for the Baltimore Metropolitan Council.