City's law department says Young can't legally kick Spector off planning board

But the planning commission is not a committee of the City Council and therefore only Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has the power to remove Spector, the law department wrote in an opinion issued Monday.

Spector has accused Young of behaving like a "bully" for retaliating against her. The City Council voted last month to ban plastic grocery bags and require all of Baltimore's nearly 3,000 police officers to wear body cameras.

Spector cast the lone vote on the 15-member council against both bills. She argued the bag ban was amended too drastically at the last minute and the body camera legislation was an illegal overreach of the council's authority.

While Young supported both bills, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake opposed them and vetoed both.

Young said Monday he removed Spector from several committees because she consistently sides with Rawlings-Blake and does not support his ideas. He also said Spector does not communicate well with him about what's going on at the planning commission.

"Here is a person who has not supported anything I have done for four years," he said.  "Pull her voting record. If she wants to be the mayor's pit-bull, she can go work for the mayor."

Young said the law department's opinion underscores the need for the City Council to have its own lawyer. But he said he would relent, and allow Spector to stay on the planning commission, which comes with a $8,000 stipend for Spector.

"The law department should not be getting involved in the council's business," Young said. "I'm going to respect their opinion, because I don't have my own lawyer to refute what they're saying. I'm not going to play petty politics. If $8,000 means that much to her, then she can keep it."

City voters in November approved a measure pushed by Young to allow the council to hire a lawyer. Young's spokesman Lester Davis said the office is working on the hiring process. lbroadwater@baltsun.com

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