Despite the threat of vetoes, the Baltimore City Council approved bills Monday that would ban plastic bags and require police officers to wear body cameras.
Councilman Jim Kraft originally proposed a five cent fee on plastic bags. The bill was changed to an outright ban last week.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has complained that the public was shut out of discussion on the ban, but Kraft said it was discussed at a hearing on Nov. 5 and at hearings on other plastic bag fees proposed over the last eight years.
“We had the same type of testimony; for the fee, against the fee, fee on paper and plastic, fee just on plastic [and] just downright ban the bags,” Kraft said “we elected to ban the bags.”
But the mayor argued later that even a council member was shut out of the discussion.
“One of the council members asked for clarification about proposed amendments in our [lunch] meeting before the council and she was shut down; basically told to shut up,” she said, referring to Councilwoman Rikki Spector.
Spector had the same problem with the change as the mayor. She voted against the bag ban.
Rawlings-Blake also reiterated her “100 percent support” for police body cameras but criticized the council’s bill. She said it did not address issues such as privacy or how to store footage from the cameras.
“These are important issues that need to be discussed and debated before a program is implemented,” she said.
Despite her opposition to the bill, the mayor is expected to send a supplemental budget request to pay for the cameras to the council early next year after a work group she organized submits recommendations on how to implement the program.