So much for the separation of politics and governance: The treasurer of Brandon Scott’s campaign committee during the primary has quietly landed a six-figure job at City Hall.

For weeks now, Calvin A. Young III has been sighted in and about the building.

No one would explain why he was there. He wasn’t registered as a lobbyist, and he refused to talk to The Brew.

The curtains finally parted on Tuesday when Councilwoman Odette Ramos and others teased out of a Scott aide that Young was on the public payroll.

“Correct. He is senior advisor to the mayor,” Ty’lor Schnella admitted, adding, “We don’t speak on personnel matters in the Council chambers.”

Pressed further by Ways and Means Committee Chair Eric Costello, Schnella provided one more nugget of information – that Young directly reports to Marvin James.

James is the chief of staff who managed Scott’s first run for mayor in 2020 and also ran Young’s short-lived bid for state delegate in Baltimore County’s District 44B.

(Young was also a candidate for mayor of Baltimore in 2016, winning 646 of the 133,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary.)

The Brew has since verified that Young was hired on September 3 at a $140,000-a-year salary, and is advising the mayor on equity, economic inclusion and other issues.

Federal Lawsuit

The hiring of the 36-year-old private equity investor comes as he and Scott face a federal lawsuit arising from Young’s recent actions as the chair of East Baltimore Development Inc. (EBDI).

Last month, Andrew Freeman filed a notice of claims to the city, saying he was illegally fired by Young as EBDI’s vice president because he supported Sheila Dixon for mayor in the 2024 Democratic primary.

On Tuesday, Freeman told the Ways and Means Committee that he was subject to “blatant racial discrimination and a violation of my First Amendment right by none other than EBDI’s chair, Calvin Young, and Baltimore City’s mayor, Brandon Scott.”

He urged the Council to authorize a forensic audit of EBDI, a nonprofit corporation established to clear away and redevelop 88 acres of deteriorated housing near the East Baltimore medical campus of Johns Hopkins University.

“After being wrongfully terminated myself and after Karen Johnson, the previous chief real estate officer was also terminated, and after Abe Rosenthal, the real estate committee chair and board member resigned because of what Calvin Young had done, there is no one left at EBDI with any real estate or development experience,” Freeman said in a written statement.

“Not transparent, not honest”

Councilman Robert Stokes expressed frustration over the recent removal of all but one community representative on the board.

“This is very disturbing. Not transparent, not honest,” Stokes said.

“Who made the decision to make the board smaller and remove the community people?” the councilman demanded.

Schnella did not respond, and EBDI President Cheryl Washington described the reduction from 12 to seven members as an “efficiency matter.”

The person with direct knowledge did not attend the hearing and was not made available to answer questions.

Chairman Costello ended the session by saying the committee will ask the law department and Mayor Scott to allow Young to appear before the panel.

Until that time, Costello said he was not going to take a vote on Stokes’ resolution for a forensic audit of the organization.

Tight-knit Board

The EBDI board is now controlled by four mayoral appointees, all closely aligned with Scott. They are:

• Young, a former partner at Green Street Impact Partners, an investment firm founded by David Warnock. On the same day Young was put on the city payroll, his name was removed from State Elections Board records as Scott’s campaign treasurer. His replacement was his older sister, Chanel Young, who attended Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School with Scott.

• State Senator Cory V. McCray (D, 45th), a holdover from the previous board. In addition to a board seat, McCray was appointed EBDI’s treasurer and the chair of the finance committee.

• Caron Watkins, assistant city equity officer and the boss of Young’s twin brother, Caylin Young, who is a state delegate, member of McCray’s BEST Democratic Club and deputy director of the Baltimore City Office of Equity and Civil Rights.

• Meghan McGee, a partner at Camden Partners, a Warnock entity that employed Young between 2018 and 2021.

The three other board members are Maria Harris Tildon, vice president of at Johns Hopkins University; Jacob Day, secretary of the Maryland Department of Housing & Community Development; and Johnny Coleman, the designated community member.

Coleman appeared before the Council to voice support for EBDI, saying the corporation has been “a benefit to my family and other families.”

Nice-looking Mirage?

Todd Scott, an East Baltimore resident who left the board voluntarily, testified in support of a forensic audit, saying EBDI has a history of massaging its financial numbers.

“Starting in 2016, I questioned consistently the data I was given. The numbers weren’t adding up,” he said.

He called EBDI’s stated goal of encouraging resettlement by Black families who were displaced by the project a mirage.

“It looked like you were building a nice-looking area,” he said, referring to the new townhouses constructed north of the Hopkins campus.

“But you were not building homeownership. Investors are buying the properties, then renting them out,” Scott said.

“You were not building homeownership. Investors are buying the properties, then renting them out”  – Todd Scott, former EBDI board member.

Washington pushed back on this narrative, saying that about 60% of the cleared property has been turned over to private developers and Johns Hopkins University.

When completed, $1.8 billion will have been invested in the district, she said, before getting into a heated argument with Stokes over EBDI’s community reinvestment fund.

So far, only $256,000 has been collected in the community fund, an amount Stokes said was a drop in the bucket compared to “all the mess the community went through and all the people that were moved out.”

Stokes complained that he’s still been unable to get the names of minority contractors and businesses that were awarded contracts by EBDI.

“It’s been 20 years [since EBDI was established] and only three businesses have come here to testify today,” he exclaimed.

Washington said privacy concerns limited her ability to disclose the names of contractors and businesses.

“It is my desire that community voices are heard,” she said, assuring Stokes that she could “bring in a whole bunch more people” to testify about how EBDI has improved their lives.

• To contact a reporter: reuttermark.yahoo.com