City solicitor first pitched ethics exemption
The Baltimore city solicitor initially proposed an ethics rules exemption for staffers in the mayor’s office and agency heads so that they all could raise private money to fund city programs, a request that has been scaled back since to only apply to the mayor herself.
City Solicitor Andre Davis described the plan to the ethics board in an April 10 letter that the board provided to The Baltimore Sun.
“Those soliciting donations (the Mayor and her designees) will be employees of the Mayor’s Office or cabinet level City officials and solicitations will be done by letter and in person or by telephone/email contact,” Davis wrote to the board’s chairwoman.
Davis has said the mayor ought to have the exemption so she can bring in money to the Baltimore City Foundation to stretch the city’s limited budget. Normally, city officials are required to get advance approval for each fundraising drive from both the ethics board and the city’s spending panel.
The five-member ethics board has not yet made a decision on the request.
At a news conference Wednesday after The Sun first reported Pugh’s request, the mayor said that if private donors are “willing to step up to the plate, I’m willing to accept those opportunities.”
“It’s something that we do because we have a cash-strapped city,” the mayor said.
The ethics rules are designed to guard against conflicts of interest and ensure transparency around private money flowing into city government or charities favored by officials. Ethics experts have said that a standing exemption for the mayor could increase the risk that she could be accused of being entangled in a conflict.
Damon Effingham, the acting Maryland director of watchdog group Common Cause, said extending the waiver to aides could have heightened the risks even further.
In a second letter to the ethics board dated May 15, Davis wrote to clarify his request.
“It was not then, nor is it now, my intent to request an exemption on behalf of persons other than the Mayor herself,” he wrote.
The second letter described in detail the kinds of foundation programs that the mayor wanted to raise money to support: education, crime reduction, access to computers, access to public transportation, drug treatment, and help for the homeless and people getting out of prison.