Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby is leaving the council at the end of this year, after losing the Democratic primary to District 1 Councilman Zeke Cohen by a wide margin.

In an interview with The Baltimore Sun and FOX45 News, Mosby hailed his efforts to professionalize the council by reducing committees and shifting staff constituent liaisons toward legislative analysis roles. He also responded to concerns about not gaining passage of a plan to restructure the city’s spending board, and the city’s slow spending of millions of dollars in federal COVID-19 pandemic funds.

This is the 14th report in a series by The Sun and FOX45 News examining the effectiveness of the City Council in serving its constituents, ahead of a November ballot measure that proposes to reduce the council size from 15 to nine members by expanding the size of most council districts, except that of the council president, who is elected citywide. The measure is funded by David Smith, co-owner of The Sun and executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns FOX45 News.

“Whether the City Council is 20 or whether it’s five, the size really has nothing to do about its effectiveness,” Mosby said regarding the ballot measure. “We need a council that’s going to be an independent voice … to really go after and tackle the systemic issues that have plagued our city for far too long.”

The mortgage fraud trial of Mosby’s ex-wife, former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, became a point of distraction during his term. He testified in January during her trial that he mismanaged the couple’s finances.

“It was really a complete investigation into every ounce and every drop of my life,” Nick Mosby said of the probe. “I’ve done my job to the best of my ability … I believe in an exceptional way, given the circumstances.”

Mosby sponsored or cosponsored 45 ordinances since 2020, including 24 that were enacted, five that were withdrawn or vetoed by the mayor, and 16 that are in committee.

Out of the four legislative categories The Sun has been tracking during its council series, none of Mosby’s bills addressed crime, while two dealt with education, 11 with quality-of-life issues and four with government accountability.

Mosby was the primary sponsor on 18 resolutions as council president, including a “House America Pledge,” which was adopted, vowing urgency to address housing insecurity in the city. Resolutions don’t carry the same force of law as ordinances but can involve activities such as expressing the council’s opinion or calling for a hearing.

As council president, Mosby also submitted 177 pieces of legislation on behalf of the mayor and 18 on behalf of the comptroller.

One of Mosby’s recent proposals would have reduced the mayor’s power on the Board of Estimates, which formulates and executes the city’s fiscal policy. The board has five voting members, including the mayor, council president, comptroller, and the mayor’s two appointees, both of whom traditionally vote with the mayor. Mosby’s plan would have cut the mayor’s appointees from the board.

The proposal did not move to a vote this year. Mosby told The Sun it makes more sense for the incoming council to decide the measure because they would be the ones sending the measure to voters in 2026.

But that explanation doesn’t hold a lot of weight, said David Williams, of the non-partisan Taxpayers Protection Alliance, saying the timing of the measure’s passage doesn’t matter.

“I look at the Board of Estimates as the first line of defense for taxpayers in the city,” he said. “The mayor has way too much influence.”

A similar proposal to restructure the BOE has been introduced several times in the past three decades. That includes one proposal by then-Council President Brandon Scott, who touted the measure as a way of “cleaning up city government” but later pumped the brakes.

“For too long, the BOE has used the fig leaf of its mayoral appointees to appear to be an actual deliberative body, when in fact its current structure allows a single person to wield unchecked power over the allocation of taxpayer dollars,” said City Comptroller Bill Henry, in an emailed statement.

In addition, Mosby highlighted his efforts to professionalize the council, in part by shifting staff from community liaisons to roles focused on budget and policy analysis. He also created a new director of budget and finance position to assist the council. The changes were meant to make the City Council “a partner at the table during the budget process,” he said.

While the council president’s role does involve legislative and leadership responsibilities, constituent services are also part of the council president’s job, said Roger Hartley, dean of the College of Public Affairs at the University of Baltimore. One of the downsides of shifting staff away from constituent services and toward legislation is that it can create distance between the council member and their constituents.

“One of the most important jobs of a council member is to represent their district and to solve problems for constituents,” he said.

Mosby reduced council committees by about half at the beginning of his term, saying committees with a small number of members provide less opportunity for dialogue and are “just not a democratic way of running things.” He said he wanted the council committee structure to more closely reflect that of the Maryland House of Delegates, where he served previously.

Mosby also has routinely voted against proposed federal pandemic relief fund spending, with the deadline to appropriate the remaining money set for the end of this year. While critics have taken aim at the slow rollout, Hartley said “it’s hard for government to spend money fast,” and that Baltimore is not the only city that has been slow to spend the funds.

Mosby said that instead of giving the money to smaller projects or individual organizations, he wanted to focus the $641 million on larger, more “strategic” initiatives, such as dealing with the city’s large number of vacant homes.

“It sounds like a lot of money,” he said. “But to a city like Baltimore, with major challenges of decades of cans that have been kicked down the road, you can’t just dissipate that money to any organization or to any initiative without a plan with synergy built into it.”