Today’s motion was narrow: the Brandon Scott administration was asking the court to disqualify the private lawyers hired by Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming in her lawsuit against Scott and the City Council seeking access to records she’s been denied.

Even before hearing any arguments, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Pamela J. White made clear she was pretty skeptical of the city’s position.

In dismissing Cumming’s request for document access as “a political disagreement,” the Scott administration “minimizes the charter authority of the OIG – particularly concerning [its] powers and responsibilities to issue and enforce subpoenas.”

It was the first open court discussion of a dispute that has shaken City Hall, with Scott accusing Baltimore’s good government watchdog of overstepping her authority and Cumming saying Scott and his law department are blocking her efforts to investigate one of his signature crime prevention programs.

While the judge stopped short of making a formal ruling today, she signaled her first impressions of the issue.

The City Charter does give the law department the right “to represent all employees and boards,” White said, but “I have a basic question about whether we should be dealing with that right, while ignoring the responsibility” of the inspector general to investigate government waste, financial fraud and abuse.

Cumming’s ability to enforce subpoenas was not just debated, but crushed by the decisionmaking of the city solicitor’s office  – Judge Pamela J. White.

Speaking of the charter amendments approved by voters in 2018 and 2022 that established and then strengthened an OIG independent of the mayor’s office, White said she found reading the legislative record “particularly helpful.”

Lawmakers described each reform effort as “a charter amendment, proposed and agreed and enacted for the purpose of creating an independent Office of Inspector General.”

“Let me repeat that,” White said, speaking slowly and emphatically. “‘For the purpose of creating an independent Office of Inspector General.’”

It was no surprise, then, that as the hearing drew to a close, White left the strong impression that she is inclined to allow Cumming’s attorneys, Anthony May and H. Mark Stichel, to continue with the lawsuit.

“The city solicitor’s office has made decisions . . . that have foreclosed, cut off, shut down any enforcement or enforceability option on the part of the inspector general to pursue its subpoenas and to advance its investigatory responsibilities,” White said.

“The OIG is a, quote-unquote, independent entity within city government,” she continued. “It has certain responsibilities enumerated by the charter, and it is expected to do so without oversight and without interference from the city law department.”

“We are one city”

Representing the law department, deputy chief of litigation Renita Collins belittled talk of OIG independence, calling it “a very nice word and thrown around quite a lot in this proceeding.”

“Was there ever a statement [in the charter] that ‘independence’ meant the right to retain counsel? That right is again exclusive to the city solicitor,” she said.

“We are one city . . . It cannot sue itself,” she intoned.

Collins addressed the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) that governs the right of the public, with numerous exceptions, to obtain public documents. The Scott administration said Cumming was subject to the MPIA when it shut down her access to documents earlier this year.

COLLINS: “She has the power to subpoena records, but she does not have the power to violate the MPIA and other laws.”

WHITE: “Is that ultimately a decision for the city solicitor to make? Or for a court of competent jurisdiction to make?”

OIG independence “is a very nice word and thrown around quite a lot in this proceeding”  – City Attorney Renita Collins.

COLLINS: “Under the current charter, the city solicitor.”

WHITE: “And if that’s perceived as interfering with, obstructing or otherwise denying the IG the opportunity to engage in their duties, their responsibilities – that’s not a conflict?”

Collins said it was not. If Cumming “is dissatisfied with the scope of her powers within that charter, she can seek a charter amendment to change the powers,” she stated.

“Sordid history with corruption”

The inspector general’s powers already reside in the charter, Cumming’s attorney, May, argued.

“It is an independent agency. That was the purpose of changing of the laws over and over again by overwhelming voter support,” he said.

“In 2018, the law expressly removed the requirement that the city solicitor approve subpoenas,” May said. “It expressly indicates that the OIG has the independent authority to enforce subpoenas.”

“Prior to 2022,” he continued, “it was the mayor, it was the city solicitor, it was other political appointees who oversaw the Office of the Inspector General,” he said.

“That was a problem because of the city’s sordid history with public corruption. What the voters decided was that this truly needs to be an independent office.”

After hearing both sides, White concluded that the two points of view about the OIG’s powers are far apart.

“The allegations in this case, as I have reviewed them, makes it obvious there is an irreconcilable conflict,” she remarked.

The judge also addressed the city’s motion filed earlier this week to seal portion’s of Cumming’s amended complaint from public view.

After reviewing the city’s motion, White said she didn’t think she would need to refer to those passages when considering the complaint. (Some of those passages were included in a story this week in The Brew.)

“In other words, I didn’t see any particular urgency on my part to address the substance of that motion to seal,” she said.

Still pending is White’s consideration of Cumming’s request for the court to affirm her subpoena power and to issue an injunction t0 prevent the Scott administration from taking any actions that would impede the work of her office.