It happened to Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming suddenly during a snowy weekend in January: her online access to city records was cut off. This followed a subpoena issued by her office demanding the unredacted financial records for a youth program run by the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE). Previously, the city had supplied her with more than 200 pages of redactions that the Law Department later acknowledged were almost entirely made by them. Under changes imposed by the city solicitor at the behest of Mayor Brandon Scott, information that Cumming’s office “could previously gather within hours or days will now take months to collect” and could be redacted by lawyers invoking attorney-client privilege, as well as the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA), Cumming said, in the lawsuit she later filed. Scott’s action, Cumming said, cripples her ability to carry out her office’s mission to investigate waste and financial fraud in city government - and ignores two voter-approved charter amendments meant to secure the office's powers and independence. The judge hearing the lawsuit seemed to side with Cumming, observing that the city solicitor’s actions “have foreclosed, cut off, shut down any enforcement or enforceability option on the part of the inspector general." With the lawsuit still pending, a proposed charter amendment to help the IG regain access to records died in the City Council. And in the latest twist, Mayor Scott says he will introduce legislation that will make the OIG’s reduced powers a matter of city law. The Brew has been covering these developments with its trademark depth and accuracy - and will continue to do so.
