BALTIMORE — City Council members came together at City Hall Monday and a hot topic of discussion was Baltimore City Government's response to the E. Coli test that came back positive in the water in West Baltimore over Labor Day weekend.
Council members are looking for answers and calling for an informational hearing to investigate the amount of time it took for community members to find out E. Coli was in the water and looking to find solutions so this won't happen again.
An investigative hearing has been scheduled for Thursday this week by City Council members in response to the positive test that appeared over a week ago.
"Well I think the concern that drove for calling for this hearing is the inconsistent and unclear communication that was coming out of the Department of Public Works (DPW) early on in the contamination event" said Eric Costello, District 11 councilman.
On Labor Day weekend, a routine test found E. Coli in three samples in Sandtown-Winchester and Harlem Park, calling for a boil water advisory in those areas by DPW.
That notification was not presented to the public until the following Monday by Twitter.
“The way this was handled Monday morning was not acceptable," said Costello.
Councilman Costello introduced a resolution for an investigative hearing where government officials along with city council members and members of the public are called to look at the timeline from when the first positive test occurred all the way to when the all clear was given.
"We've invited city administrator, health commissioner, DPW, the emergency management director for the city as well as the mayor's chief of communications," said Costello.
"I'm hoping for more transparency, but also to be more solution oriented because we know there were some things that could have been done much better. To fill in those gaps so hopefully we won't have to deal with this issue again, on a crisis level such as this but to be prepared better in the future," said John Bullock, councilman 9th district.
Council members are asking for clear and consistent communication at the beginning of an emergency.
"It was about two or three days after the fact that I found out," said Joe Braswell, a Baltimore resident.
People like the 75-year old Braswell says he'd rather be safe than sorry and transparency is the first step.
"Well to begin with, it was so late coming out that it was not clear if there was E. Coli or whether there was a leak of some sort, it was just totally not clear. Then there was so much confusion about what should happen and everything took place so late so it seemed scurrilous about whats going on," said Braswell.
The all clear was given Friday when test results came back negative for E. Coli in West Baltimore.
The hearing will be at 1 p.m. Thursday in City Council Chambers.
