Working at a city agency seems like it would involve a lot of thankless tasks and bureaucratic nonsense. But there are surely times when it is fun, like when it's time to organize an event for citizens to enjoy themselves or an opportunity to educate kids. And sometimes such events or initiatives need an anthropomorphic mascot—a lovable animal or thing with human qualities—to add that certain je ne sais quoi that conveys "Oh yes, this will be fun." We are all bombarded by such mascots every day, whether they represent our sports teams or call out to us on our boxes of cereal, but there's something a little more pure about these characters when they are used to hold together our continually fraying civic life. With that in mind, we scoured the websites and social media footprints of various agencies and the numerous departments withing the Baltimore City government to rank and praise the very best mascots.