The upheaval at City Hall following former Mayor Catherine Pugh’s resignation last week continued Monday night, with now former 2nd District Councilman Brandon Scott earning a promotion from his colleagues to City Council president.

As the next in succession, Bernard C. “Jack” Young, the former council president, officially became Baltimore’s 51st mayor following Pugh’s departure. Pugh, who has not made a public appearance in weeks after taking sick leave April 1, came under fire after receiving more than $800,000 in questionable deals from her Healthy Holly children’s book series.

In the first few days following Young’s ascension to mayor, Scott was essentially locked in a 7-7 stalemate among his City Council colleagues with 6th District member Sharon Green Middleton to succeed Young. Scott, however, won over Ed Reisinger, 69, who represents sections of South and Southwest Baltimore, and Mary Pat Clarke, 77, who represents North and Northeast Baltimore, after reaching out several times to the veteran legislators over the weekend, according to reporting by The Baltimore Sun.

Both Reisinger and Clarke have said they will not be running for reelection in 2020.

Fellow Councilman Bill Henry is planning to officially announce his bid for City Comptroller in June. Altogether, it means more council seats will be up for grabs again after a youthful, majority turnover of the council in 2016.

At the same time, Scott, 35, has all but declared he will run for mayor in 2020.

One Democratic leader, who wished to remain anonymous, told Baltimore magazine the Scott has already signed on with top Maryland fundraising consultant Colleen Martin-Lauer, whose previous clients include former mayors Martin O’Malley and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. “At this point, I don’t know what he’s waiting for,” the Democratic official said.

Most likely, it was the opportunity to assume the mantle of City Council president, add the title and experience to an already solid resume—and bask in the support of fellow Democratic leaders in the City.

Scott, who grew up in Park Heights, graduated from Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, where he ran track. He studied political science and graduated from St. Mary’s College in Southern Maryland and then got his start in politics as a liaison in the office of then-City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

First elected at 27, one the youngest ever elected to citywide office, Scott serves as chair of the City Council’s high-profile Public Safety Committee and co-founded the anti-violence group 300 Men March. He also is a member of the Budget and Appropriations and Judiciary and Legislative Investigations committees.

Scott would be significantly younger than the average U.S. mayor—56, according to a recent study—should he throw his hat into the ring as expected. But the ambitious Scott would be the same age as Martin O’Malley, another ambitious former councilman, when O’Malley took office and actually possess a few more years of elected office experience.

“Brandon is hard-working, there’s no doubt about that, he’s smart, and capable,” said former 1st District City Councilman James Kraft, who was not making an endorsement, but expressed confidence in his former colleague’s ability to handle the city’s top job. “He’d also surround himself with smart, good people.”

Pugh’s reelection was by no means a done deal before the recent book scandal and FBI and IRS raids. It’s broken wide open now.

Former Deputy Attorney General of Maryland “Thiru” Vignarajah has announced he’s running. Most observers expect former Mayor Sheila Dixon to run again. State Sen. Bill Ferguson and former Baltimore Police Department spokesman T.J. Smith are said to be considering bids. State Sen. Jill Carter, who proposed the legislation that helped launch the Healthy Holly and University of Maryland Medical System investigation, and state Sen. Mary Washington are two more credible potential candidates.

Then there are folks like business leader David Warnock, former Maryland AG Criminal Division head Elizabeth Warnock, and state Del. Nick Mosby, who all ran in 2016 and could conceivably take another crack.

A potential bid by former NAACP chief Ben Jealous, who won the Democratic nomination for governor and recently bought a house in Baltimore, is also garnering a lot of interest in local Democratic circles.

There is always the chance that Young, who has said he’s not interested in running for mayor, could decide he likes the job of mayor and try to win election to the office.

And that’s just the short list.

Mayor Catherine Pugh’s most recent $100,000 children’s book contract with the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS)—a deal made in 2018—has been cancelled and she has returned the money amid a deepening ethics scandal, according to spokesmen for the mayor and the UMMS.

The most recent 2018 UMMS contract for 20,000 more copies from the mayor’s Healthy Holly children’s series had yet been fulfilled because the book’s illustrator had been ill, Pugh spokesman James Bentley told Baltimore magazine.

A member of the UMMS board since 2001 before her recent resignation, Pugh entered into five children’s book contracts with the hospital network since 2011, totaling $500,000. Those contracts were each for a purchase of 20,000 of her self-published Healthy Holly children’s books at a cost of $100,000—in which Pugh netted $20,000 in profit from each deal.

When asked if the mayor has considered returning any or all of the $400,000 from the previous four contracts—or her $80,000 in profits—Bentley said he did not know. UMMS spokesman Michael Schwartzberg declined to answer a question regarding whether there have been discussions between the UMMS board and Pugh about returning money from previous contracts.

Baltimore City state Sen. Bill Ferguson, a Democrat considered a potential mayor challenger in 2020, has called on Pugh to return the money she’s received back to medical system. Baltimore City state Del. Brooke Leirman called the debacle “appalling” in a tweet. “It just keeps getting worse . . . I can’t even decide what the worst part is,” Lierman wrote.

Tuesday, The Sun reported Pugh—through her book company, Healthy Holly LLC—has made $7,040 in state political contributions since 2015, including a $5,000 contribution to her own campaign. Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski’s campaign, which received $1,000, said they planned return the money. Baltimore City state Sen. Jill Carter, who introduced legislation making it illegal for board members to profit from contracts with the hospitals they govern, is looking to donate the money to charity.

Asked Wednesday if she would release her tax returns, or tax documents for her company, Pugh told The Sun she would not “because I did everything right.” She referred to the inquires a “witch hunt.” Pugh did not attend the weekly Board of Estimates meeting at City Hall on Wednesday, nor did she hold her usual post BOE press availability.

Anne Fullerton, spokeswoman for the Baltimore City Public School System, said BCPSS received a shipment of Pugh’s children’s books between 2011 and 2013. Documentation for that shipment hasn’t been located, however. Fullerton told Baltimore that the books had not been sought by the school system, nor were they used as part of any curriculum. She could not say how many books the school system received, but said roughly 8,700 currently sit in a school warehouse and that there were no immediate plans to distribute those books.

In the meantime, Pugh’s top communications consultant said he would not renew his contract with the mayor when it expires at the end of the month.

In an emailed statement to Baltimore, attorney Stephen Burch, chairman of the board of the University of Maryland Medical System, said he takes “very seriously the concerns raised regarding Board members that have business relationships with UMMS.”

Burch said along with accepting Pugh’s resignation, he has accepted the resignations of UMMS board members John Dillon and Robert Pevenstein. The Sun broke the story last week that nine members of UMMS board have business deals with the hospital network, which they oversee. Dillon reported his health care consulting firm received $300,000 from 2017 and 2018 contracts. Pevenstein reported that his technology firms received more than $150,000 through UMMS contracts in 2017. He reported his son made more than $100,000 from UMMS in 2018. In 2014, according to The Sun’s reporting, UMMS provided $25,000 to the Gov. Larry Hogan and Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford’s inaugural committee.

Burch also said he has requested three board members—August Chiasera, Francis X. Kelly, James Soltesz and Walter Tilley, Jr.—to take an immediate voluntary leave of absence while the UMMS board reviews their governance and transparency practices.

M&T Bank executive August Chiasera has reported $7.4 million in revenue for the bank from UMMS contracts over the past two years. Former state Sen. Francis X. Kelley’s insurance company has reported $4.4 million in revenue from UMMS revenue over the past two years.

With record numbers over the eight days of early voting in Maryland—a 57 percent increase from the last primary election in 2014—polling places throughout the city experienced shorter lines and wait times today. When the polls opened at 7 a.m., local politicians and campaign staffers were there to eagerly greet voters for the 2018 Maryland primary election.

Del. Brooke Lierman—who is one-fourth of the district 46 team including senator Bill Ferguson, and delegates Luke Clippinger and Robbyn Lewis—was out bright and early to greet voters at William Paca Elementary School in Patterson Park.

Lierman also believes that this primary election may be the turning point for major change within the city. She says that residents are more focused than ever on all of the major issues in the city and are ready to put leaders in places they believe will do some good.

“It’s been good to see people coming out,” she said. “We face big challenges here in Baltimore City and there’s a lot of work to be done at the state level and we need proven leaders who have shown that they can be effective.”

The climate amongst voters at William Paca today was split. There were some who enthusiastically cast their votes for their favorite candidates, while others said they were simply fulfilling their civic duty, with no feelings one way or another about the pool of candidates.

“I feel good about who I voted for,” said Patterson Park resident Marissa Fleming after exiting the polling place. “I’m exercising my right, so my voice will be heard and I’m hoping they can do some good for the area.”

Earl Jones, who registered to vote today, did so because he believes this is the only way to help evoke change in his community. While he’s not particularly pleased with the campaigns he’s been following, he’s hopeful that there is a “diamond in the rough” among politicians running.

“We need someone that’s really going to work and be out here with us and active in all the communities,” he said. “I will be able to vote in November now, and I’m hoping that the right candidates make it to that ballot. I know [voting] is something that needs to be done to help my city.”

Eileen Del Valle, feels that it’s not only her civic duty to get out to the polls, but it’s also important to teach her 4-year-old daughter the importance of making her voice heard.

“She comes with me all the time, this is her third time now,” Del Valle said. “I want to get her excited about doing her duty early.”

With some races heating up in the city—namely the state’s attorney’s race with Ivan Bates suing State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Thiru Vignarajah for defamation—some voters have been turned off by the smear campaigns and negativity.

“It’s gotten pretty nasty, especially towards the end,” said Nelson Vasconcelos. “It just muddies the water. It affects my voting to a degree, I mean I know who I wasn’t voting for in the state’s attorney’s race, but it did affect who I ultimately voted for.”

To add another layer of drama to election day, a computer glitch at the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) has caused as many as 80,000 Marylanders to cast provisional ballots today. It affects residents who tried to change their address or party affiliation through the MVA since 2017. When these residents show up to vote, the correct information will not be available, however no one will be turned away. Those voters will be given a provisional ballot that will be counted on July 5.

On Monday, Democratic legislative leaders called for the immediate resignation of MVA administrator Christine Nizer, who oversees the agency that failed to forward voter information to the Maryland Board of Elections. Gov. Larry Hogan has ordered an audit to find out what went wrong.

“It’s absolutely unacceptable,” Lierman said of the glitch. “This is one of MVA’s core jobs—to make sure they are an entry point to registering. We will be having oversight hearings to figure out what happened and demanding that Gov. Hogan make some changes to make sure this doesn’t happen again. We need to make sure every single vote is counted.”

The polls will be open until 8 p.m. tonight.

Adam Lindquist, director of the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative, cautioned that one year’s data is not enough to make a trend. Still, he could not help but smile over the apparently dramatic progress—documented in today’s annual report of the Baltimore Harbor—the city appears to making in cleaning up its most treasured asset.

At the beginning of the decade, the nonprofit Waterfront Partnership set a goal of making the harbor swimmable and fishable by 2020. At the time, it seemed an impossible task—a literal pipe dream given the state of the city’s century-old underground sewage system.

“[Waterfront board member] Michael Hankin said he’s planning to jump in right outside here,” Lindquist said after the release of 2018 report in Fells Point this morning. “We may need to find a bigger location for a public swim if things keep heading in this direction.

“There is phenomenal improvement,” Lindquist added. “Thirty-two out of 49 monitoring stations showed improvement, including every stream. There are parts of the Jones Falls [a key Inner Harbor feeder stream] that previously received a ‘0,’ in terms of meeting fecal bacteria standards for safe swimming, that met those standards 100 percent of the time in 2017.”

Lindquist and state officials on hand pointed to the start of a new $430 million infrastructure effort that will eventually reduce sewer overflows by 80 percent—the target for completion is 2020—as well numerous volunteer-intensive restoration projects around Baltimore’s harbor and streams. The target of the $430 million Back River Waste Water Treatment project is a 10-mile backup of raw sewage, first reported in 2015, from Charles Village to the city’s treatment facility in eastern Baltimore County.

State delegate Brooke Lierman, a leading environmental advocate in Annapolis, praised local volunteer efforts—which include the restoration of the Gwynn Falls and Harlem Park bio-retention and asphalt removal projects—with a quote from The Lorax, the environmentally conscious Dr. Seuss character: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

She also touted the city’s recent ban on polystyrene foam, an effort, which she noted was led by city high school students and the youth group Baltimore Beyond Plastic.

Rudy Chow, director of the Baltimore Department of Public Works, said the city has been making significant progress in terms of repairs to the city’s storm water and sewage systems. Last year, the city finalized a renegotiation of an EPA consent decree order to overhaul its antiquated water sanitation infrastructure. “It was pushed off for decades, way too long,” said Chow, who has served as director since 2014. “It’s the prime reason water bills are now going up.”

The overhaul is projected to cost $2 billion when completed in 2031, but Phase I of the effort, repairing and relining the storm water pipes, is underway and expected to be done by 2021. Additional hydraulic improvements are planned after that. According to this year’s harbor water quality report, the number of city-resolved pollution investigations has doubled over the past three years. The 2016 Waterfront Partnership report gave the harbor’s today waters an “F” grade and streams a “D-.” This year’s report did not include grades as in the past, but instead offered more nuanced information.

Chow also pointed to the discovery and removal last year of an estimated 140-ton mass of congealed fat, oil, and trash under midtown—dubbed the “fatberg”—which was causing sewer overflows in the area, as a step in the direction. Education efforts have begun to inform local restaurants and other businesses about prevention

The top five takeaways from Harbor Heartbeat Report, from the Waterfront Partnership release:

1. Fecal bacteria levels in Baltimore’s streams and harbor, monitored by Blue Water Baltimore, substantially improved in 2017. Sewer repairs in the City and County are ongoing and there has been a 20 percent reduction in the number of reported sewer overflows since 2015.

2. Although data shows improved bacteria scores, Waterfront Partnership cannot state what specific actions caused these improvements. More years of data are needed to determine if changes are part of a larger trend.

3. Less trash—150 tons less—was collected from the Harbor in 2017, compared in 2016, which advocates attribute to less rainfall as well as the City’s decision to provide trash cans to all residents and increase street sweeping.

4. Conductivity in the streams continues to be the worst performing indicator with a score of eight percent. Salts and other pollutants are carried into our streams when it rains, raising the conductivity to unsafe levels for fish and other wildlife.

5. Over the last four years, Baltimore City DPW found and repaired 279 pollution sources in the city’s sewer and storm pipes and more than doubled its capacity to perform pollution investigations.

*The third annual Baltimore Floatilla, a fundraiser for the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative, is slated for June 9 at Canton Waterfront Park.