Yesterday the administration posted a "Myth vs. Fact" response to my recent op-ed. If the students who were promised this money receive it by June 30, that outcome matters, and I will be glad for them. But how we get there matters too, and several claims in the administration's response don't match the documentary record.

Asking a Council member to administer this program is the same Charter problem I raised in my op-ed. The executive branch is responsible for implementation, regardless of which Council member steps in to fill that gap.

On the Mayor's March position. The administration now says Mayor Littmann "has said he would honor this FY26 appropriation." The complete record tells a different story. His March 26 email to the Council stated: "This isn't a priority for me, so I won't be creating such a program. If no one acts, the program will be defunct, and the funds will carry over into this year's priorities and budget. That is my recommendation and preference." He added: "I recommend we let the clock run out on this program." He later told the Capital Gazette that getting a process established "would be unlikely" and that it was up to a Council member to put together a plan. Each subsequent public statement has grown progressively more committed, but only in response to escalating public pressure. That is not a record of consistent good faith. The Mayor's initial position was a clear statement of intent not to implement a duly adopted Council appropriation. That is the Charter violation at the heart of this dispute, and that is what the administration's Myth vs. Fact document is attempting to rewrite.

On who builds the framework. The administration continues to assert that the Council should have stepped forward to design and administer the program. That is not how our Charter works. The Council is a legislative body. We pass policy and appropriate funds. Designing and implementing programs is the executive's job, per Article V, Sections 2 and 3 of the Charter. The repeated suggestion that Council members should "volunteer" to administer a city program is itself the Charter problem my op-ed raised.

On the line-item critique. The administration argues the previous Council passed this amendment without a staffing or operational framework. That critique has merit as a governance observation, and it is a fair conversation for us to have going forward. But it does not give the executive branch authority to decline implementation. If the administration believed the framework was insufficient, the Charter-compliant response was to engage former Alderpersons Gay, Finlayson, and Arnett to determine intent and then build the framework. That is what the executive branch is there to do. Sitting on the appropriation for months and then pointing back at the Council is not a remedy the Charter recognizes.

On the privacy and financial concerns. I have never said these concerns should be ignored. My consistent position has been that they are legitimate administrative issues the executive branch exists to manage, and that should have been managed beginning in December rather than raised only after public scrutiny began.

On the "compromise" I am said to have rejected. What I opposed was a proposal to redirect this scholarship funding to summer camp programs. That is a substantively different use of the appropriation than what the Council adopted. If the Council wanted to repurpose those funds, the proper path was to confirm intent with the original sponsor and introduce legislation to adjust the appropriation. That is the Charter-prescribed remedy.

The public deserves to evaluate the complete record, not a selectively framed version of it. That record shows a Mayor who began in March with an unambiguous statement that he would not implement this appropriation and recommended letting it expire. Everything that followed, the procedural concerns, the process critiques, the calls for Council members to step in, came after that initial position met public resistance. The Charter does not permit an administration to decline implementation of a duly adopted appropriation based on policy preference, and then reframe that decision as responsible stewardship after the fact. That is the history this response is attempting to revise, and the public should know it.