TOWSON, Md. — Baltimore County Inspector General Kelly Madigan has investigated a complaint that County Council Chairman Julian Jones used his county email address to send newsletters that asked for campaign donations.
Jones has been on the council since 2014. He represents parts of Owings Mills and Reisterstown mostly west of Reisterstown Road, as well as the Liberty Road corridor.
The report concluded that, although the emails violated the county's electronic communications policy, the violations were apparently not done intentionally.
Madigan's office is recommending that the County Council make a formal set of policies regarding the requirement that there's a strict delineation between county-related and campaign-related duties.
The report shows how the constituent newsletters that Jones was sending out had a "Donate" button on the bottom of the page.
In a response to Madigan's office, Jones questions "factual details about the complaint" and says "the computer glitch that caused this unfortunate brouhaha" has been fixed.
He also criticizes the investigation, wondering "where exactly it fits into the mission of the OIG to identify fraud, abuse and illegal acts, and identify ways to promote efficiency, accountability and integrity in County government. Clearly, anyone who is an elected official is acutely aware of the line between constituent work and campaign work. In fact, soliciting for campaign funds is about the easiest and brightest-line rule to understand. It would be rather brazen and obvious for a candidate or an office-holder to intentionally send out emails on government time or using government resources to improperly solicit campaign funds. That is Elective Office 101. However, that is not to say an error could not be made, such as with the email templates that occurred in this situation, where a mistake by me, my staff or volunteers caused a template with a 'Donate' button to be pasted into constituent emails."
