Some Baltimore lawmakers were aghast last April over a proposed amendment intended to appear on the November ballot asking voters to scrap multiple provisions in the City Charter – handing the mayor, City Council or agency administrators the power to work out the details of a host of once charter-mandated matters.

“I’m not comfortable with having this move as a package,” Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton had said, of City Council Bill 26-0172, backed by Council President Zeke Cohen and others on the council. “It’s too much – it’s so many pieces!”

“It looks like we are hiding transparency within a larger paragraph that, more than likely, most people will not read,” Councilman James Torrence had complained.

Tonight, on voice votes, the Council voted to advance three bills that were formed from pieces of that mega-bill.

One bill (26-0190) eliminates the competitive bidding requirement – the longtime rule that specifies material purchases, large-scale public works projects and other contracts must be awarded to “the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.”

Explaining his vote, Cohen described how, sitting on the spending board, he has noticed how “the low bid often does not end up being the lowest bid” since low bidders frequently “come back or change work orders, which we are essentially locked into, because the work has not been completed.”

Another bill (26-0192) eliminates the requirement for Board of Estimates approval for so-called minor privileges – requests for structures like sandwich-boards or outdoor seating that would be in the public right-of-way.

The third charter amendment bill – “Budget, Veto and Board of Estimates Reform” – remains quite “mega.”

Still Sprawling

City Council Bill 26-0191, among many other things, changes the veto and veto-override timing for bills and for the budget, providing the Council with more time to potentially override a budget veto.

It also removes the Board of Estimates from the first stages of the budget process. Instead, it allows the budget to be introduced without first being approved by the five-member Board.

Eliminating vast swaths of the Charter, the measure in many cases transfers authority to the mayor and away from the Board of Estimates.

The 25-page bill starts by ensuring that the City Council’s general counsel is paid at least as much as the chief of the Law Department’s General Counsel division and ends with changes to the budgeting process for the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

Under the proposed new language, the budget approved or the office by its Advisory Board is to be recommended not to the Board of Estimates, but to the Mayor:

“The advisory board, on behalf of the Office of the Inspector General, shall submit the recommended budget [to the Board of Estimates in a timely manner in order for the recommended budget to be considered for inclusion in the Ordinance of Estimates.] FOR THE MAYOR’S CONSIDERATION IN ASSEMBLING THE ORDINANCE OF ESTIMATES.”

The bill alters Board of Estimates authority over everything from collective bargaining to bid awards.

It also removes the requirement that a formal advertisement for any public work or purchase of supplies or professional services by any City agency be advertised in two general circulation newspapers. This provision was sharply criticized by Councilwoman Danielle McCray at the April City Council meeting for contradicting the “the buzzword . . . of equity.”

The advertising requirement, she protested, “benefits people who have been dis-empowered – communities with members that look like me who need that information within those newspapers.”

“We still have seniors that need that information,” she complained. “They’re not online.”

The 2nd District representative said it was just one example of the excessive number of provisions “some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t agree with” that are slated for revision under the charter change bill.

“Packaging this in this manner is reckless,” McCray had said.