Bailey: two councilmen should have abstained
Steve Bailey, co-chairman of the county chapter of Americans for Prosperity, said he thinks two Baltimore County councilmen who voted Jan. 19 on the council’s pension reform bills should have abstained — because they stood to benefit financially.
Bailey said Democratic Councilmen John Olszewski Sr. and Ken Oliver both benefited from voting to approve a bill that caps pensions at 60 percent for any freshman councilman sworn-in as of December 2010, while voting to table what has been considered a tougher bill that would have imposed limits on both their pensions almost immediately.
Both Oliver, a two-term incumbent, and Olszewski, a three-term incumbent, would have seen their pensions capped at 60 percent under a bill proposed by Councilman Joseph Bartenfelder. That bill was ultimately killed in favor of Councilman Kevin Kamenetz’s bill.
The council also voted against several amendments — all sponsored by Bartenfelder — that would have altered Kamenetz’s bill. Those amendments would have included the change in pension for current council members with less than four full terms on the council. Those changes would have affected six of the seven council seats, since four others are expected to be open seats for the 2010 election.
“There’s a definite benefit,” Bailey said. “It allows them to keep growing their pensions. There’s a conflict of interest there.”
Bailey said the votes are different than those taken by the council regarding pay raises, since those raises do not go into effect until after the next council is sworn in and incumbents can always lose a re-election bid.
But Kamenetz’s bill excludes all councilmen currently serving on the seven-member body.
Council sources familiar with the ethics laws said Bailey’s claims might be a stretch — but could not immediately point to county law that would decide the issue one way or the other.
Oliver did not respond to requests for an interview.
Olszewski said last week that he was in a no-win situation.
“I’d get knocked if I voted on the issue and knocked if I didn’t vote on it,” he said last week.
In the end, Olszewski said, little would have changed even if he and Oliver abstained, since the vote would have then been 4-1 in favor of Kamenetz’s bill.