Overview
- The council held a hearing Wednesday on Councilman Mark Conway’s plan to ask voters to make the inspector general a co-custodian of agency records.
- City Attorney Jeff Hochstetler told members the plan would bypass the Maryland Public Information Act, which he said requires confidentiality reviews before agencies share records.
- Inspector General Isabel Cumming said redactions prevented her team from tracking money in MONSE’s SideStep pilot, where she reported finding fraudulent invoices.
- Mayor Brandon Scott countered that most records his office gave the watchdog were unredacted and provided in line with state law.
- Council members took no vote and said the access dispute is already before a judge after the inspector general sued and won an early round.