Post # 313 – Bill Ferguson continues his effort to destroy the office of Inspector General
Bobby LaPin – “If you deliver a document to the IG that is grossly redacted ... not giving information to the IG whether you're lying or not...it comes across you're trying to hide something."
Last Monday, Isabel Cumming, the Baltimore City Inspector General was sent a link to a video on her phone while on vacation and decided to post it to her personal Facebook page without reviewing it. It was a video done by “Hannibal is Hungry” who regularly posts things on YouTube that portrays political leaders in cartoon images in a negative light. The video depicted Scott with a cigar holding alcohol, shopping bags and surrounded by stacks of money. Shortly afterwards she removed the post and the next day she issued a public apology.
I shared a link to a third party video commentary on current events on my personal Facebook account that video included a satirical AI generated digital image that I did not notice and do not endorse or support. I removed the video from my personal Facebook posts upon receiving feedback. I apologize to Mayor Scott, my dedicated OIG team and the residents of Baltimore City. This post detracted from the important missions of the OIG to investigate waste, financial abuse and fraud it will not happen again.
Now some people are good at accepting apologies and then there’s Bill Ferguson. He is not interested in accepting one, but he was not the party involved that could have been offended by what was posted. Like Trump Ferguson does not apologize for things like high BG&E bills. On Twitter he retweeted the Cumming apology and then added the following comments.
An apology is fine for personal redemption. It’s not sufficient professionally under the circumstances. For an office builds on impartiality the choice to publicly post insulting and offensive content to attack a city mayor undermines the public trust and the work of an oversight office overall.
This whole episode is exactly why a thoughtful purposeful framework for accessing data in the public sector is so important. Too often personal vendettas cause people to make bad choices and good public policy requires systems to be in place to limit the potential damage that can result.
Bill Ferguson has been out to destroy the office of Inspector General not only in Baltimore City but all the Inspector General offices throughout the state of Maryland. It is not mystery why he wants to do this. Political leaders like Ferguson always talk about accountability but when they or their political allies are being investigated, suddenly inspector generals are the Antichrist. But for the most part a lot of it has to do with politics. Inspector Generals are supposed to root out waste, fraud and abuse and Bill Ferguson does not want that done in Baltimore City. There was legislation that was introduced last session the help aid and protect inspector generals in Maryland, SB991 and Ferguson killed it.
Several jurisdictions in the state of Maryland have offices of inspector generals and Senate democratic leader Bill Ferguson is willing to kill all of them off just so he can kill off the one in Baltimore City to protect Mayor Scott.
There’s been a lot of questions regarding MONSE, SideStep and Safe Streets and where the money is going and how it is being spent. Mayor Scott, “If it’s not illegal, then it’s appropriate.” Mayor Scott and Bill Ferguson say trust us, but as President Reagan said to Gorbachev in the 1980’s, “Trust but verify,” and that is the job of the Baltimore City Inspector General to verify that trust.
This also has a huge political angle. Ferguson is running for reelection to his Senate seat and is facing Baltimore entrepreneur Bobby LaPin. LaPin has been supportive of the office of Inspector General and so have the citizens of the 46th district.
When I interviewed Bobby LaPin a couple weeks ago and asked him about the office of Inspector General he said the following.
This is another common sense thing. Here’s this is what’s funny John, there’s so much that you don’t even have to have a background in political science or anything to understand what makes sense. If I give a dollar to someone and that person says I’m going spend this dollar on an apple. If that person goes out and spends it on an orange, but I gave them a dollar to buy an apple and I have no one to make sure they use that dollar to buy an apple. Well who’s at fault the person who wrongly spent the money or me not making sure as a politician that money is spent correctly. If we have no Inspector General audit system to make sure that this dollar for an apple is being spent correctly, we’re hurting working people. People are out there working so hard to pay their bills right now and on top of that they pay taxes. But here’s the thing about taxes, no one would ever complain about how much money they’re paying for in taxes if they got something back for it, but when you feel like you’re paying taxes and you have no return on your investment of course we’re going to complain. So when people ask me where’s the money and should we have Inspector Generals and should we have audits on everything that we’re spending, absolutely it makes sense that we have to audit where the taxpayers money is going. I’m really big into that because like I just don’t understand what the argument is over it. It’s a common sense argument.
These are public servants who are elected by the people to represent them. They’re spending public money, money that I work hard for, that you work hard for John, that plumbers and electricians and the mechanic you talked about earlier worked hard for and paying taxes. This is public stuff there should be no speculation there should be no cover up there should be no redacted documents. The people deserve to know the people deserve to have access to the information so that people can make wise educated choices and decisions on what’s happening in the government. What really pushes distrust of politicians and distrust of the government in general is when people feel like they’re being lied to. Regardless of if they’re being lied to or not, if you deliver to an Inspector General whose job is literally to audit and to make sure that people’s money is being spent wisely, if you deliver a document to the IG that is grossly redacted with black lines or you’re not giving information to the IG whether you’re lying or not it comes across to the average person that you’re trying to hide something. That’s wrong to do to working people because again these people work for us. That State House in Annapolis is owned by the people. The City Hall in Baltimore is owned by the people. These are our buildings. These are people that work for us. These politicians and they’re spending our money that people deserve to have an advocate that protects the money that hard working people give to the government.
Ferguson may think he is playing chess. One of Ferguson’s criticisms of not advancing Senate Bill 991 was the fact that Inspector General Cumming sued the city and was taking her case to court. If the courts rule in her favor, in the end the Maryland Legislature would be powerless under Ferguson to change this, if he is still Senate democratic leader next year, to undermine inspector generals across the state. Ferguson would have to create legislation to overturn a court ruling. This ruling would rely on the constitutionality of the Baltimore City inspector general’s office in the city charter. By then the Baltimore City office of Inspector General may have all the information they need to follow through on a variety of cases that Ferguson cannot protect Brandon Scott from, especially if the feds get involved.