Two weeks ago, the Concerned Citizens of Baltimore, a group of nearly 200 Baltimore City residents, filed a lawsuit claiming the lack of city services is a violation of the city charter.
This past week, the same group filed another petition in Circuit Court, this one, calling for the city to immediately shut-down Mayor Brandon Scott’s Clean Corp initiative.
The city invested nearly $15 million in the Clean Corp program, which hires city residents to empty public trash cans, maintain vacant lots and alleys, and remove street debris across the city. It's a job Stinnie argues is better suited for trained city employees.
Baltimore City Councilman Isaac Yitzy Schleifer said he believes it is unfortunate that residents have to resort to lawsuits to get DPW to perform their most routine function.
"This program that they introduced to us six months ago or so, council members came out saying that it was very problematic from the beginning," Schleifer said. "Before we had any information, it was very clear to us that any money that's going towards trash collections should be going directly to DPW to handle their infrastructure needs so that all 300 neighborhoods in the city can get clean."
Schleifer added that the $15 million spent on cleaning 15 neighborhoods is only a band-aid, a short-term solution.
"As soon as that program ends, those communities are going to be right back to where they started from because they're not addressing the root cause," he said.