The good news is that Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced that the state will spend more than $75 million per year toward the goal of converting at least 5,000 vacant properties in Baltimore into homeownership or other productive uses in the next five years. The bad news is that Mayor Brandon Scott still has not come up with a credible plan on how to manage the complex process of acquiring, rehabilitating and disposing of vacant and derelict properties.

The governor’s interest in one of the city’s most vexing problems is a refreshing change from his predecessor. If Moore is serious about actually accomplishing anything, however, he needs to bring something else to bear: tough love in the form of insistence that the mayor demonstrates that the city is capable of efficiently and effectively administering the expenditure of such a massive influx of state funds.

Last December, The Sun’s Editorial Board opined that the plan announced by the mayor had “the feel of a hastily written undergraduate term paper.” Nothing has changed. Details remain unavailable on how the city proposes to work with a private partner, Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD), to return derelict properties to productive uses.

Doing so is a specialized task that requires skills in real estate not typically found in municipal agencies.

It should be administered by an entity that operates openly and transparently and has sufficient continuity and independence to survive changes in mayors and remain free of political interference. Although the entity must be sensitive to the concerns of individual neighborhoods, its decisions cannot be subject to veto by the affected neighborhoods and their council representatives.

If they are, the city and state will waste money and accomplish little. The scale of the problem, with about 13,000 vacant properties, is so large that micromanagement by city elected officials will cripple the process.

The fact that some projects are going to make residents happier than others is a price that must be paid if progress is to be made toward the governor’s goal. Difficult decisions have to be made.

Many cities with a substantial number of blighted properties have turned to specially constituted “land banks” to do the job. Land banks have been effective in reducing blight when given adequate political and financial support.

There are about 250 currently operating in the United States. State legislation allowing Baltimore to establish a land bank with the power to acquire, hold and sell real property was passed by the General Assembly in 2008.

Councilwoman Odette Ramos introduced a bill that would have created a quasi-public city land bank authority. It languished in committee for over 1.5 years before she withdrew it last month in the face of certain disapproval by the City Council.

Scott opposed the bill, stating that the process will be administered by the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Pardon my skepticism, but there is nothing about the track record of DHCD that suggests that it is up to the challenge. As with many city agencies, it struggles to perform its existing responsibilities.

In my opinion, the attempt by Ramos to create a city land bank was unsuccessful for the same reason that former Mayor Sheila Dixon was unsuccessful 16 years ago.

A former city housing official attributed the demise of Dixon’s land bank proposal to fear by council members that they “wouldn’t have the same prerogative over their districts” when it came to the disposition of properties if city agencies did not retain complete control.

Control over who is awarded contracts to prepare city-owned vacant properties for sale and who gets to buy them will be a valuable commodity that can be traded for political support when state money starts rolling in.

The mayor and City Council apparently are unwilling to surrender that kind of power and influence to an independent entity.

The governor and General Assembly would be foolish not to demand that the city describe exactly how the proposed collaboration between DHCD and BUILD will work, delineating the respective rights and responsibilities of each party.

Such information is completely missing from the published agreement between DHCD, BUILD and the Greater Baltimore Committee.

Provisions ensuring transparency and accountability should be added, including periodic and spot audits of expenditures by both DHCD and BUILD.

Policies and procedures governing decisions must be in writing. Leaving the nuts and bolts of the process to business as usual in Baltimore is an invitation to failure and abuse.

David Plymyer (X: @dplymyer; dplymyer@comcast.net) retired as county attorney for Anne Arundel County in 2014. He lives in Catonsville.