Baltimore Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Health Commissioner Barbot Join Doomed Game of Running Out Clock on Interest in Teen Swimmer Louis Lowenthal’s Wrongful Death at Michael Phelps Swim Club

by Irvin Muchnick

Baltimore’s commissioner of health, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, has been as quiet as a mouse in the October 2012 lifeguard-free drowning death of 14-year-old Louis Lowenthal at the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center, home of Michael Phelps’ North Baltimore Aquatic Club.

“Yeah — a deaf and dumb mouse,” as Curly of the Three Stooges once put it.

Meanwhile, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake also seems determined to join the community in this conspiracy of silence. Rawlings-Blake and her executive assistant, Elizabeth Koontz, have failed to respond to Concussion Inc.’s redundant inquiries on the status of our request under the Maryland Public Information Act for copies of Meadowbrook’s original public pool license application and its most recent annual renewal application.

Barbot’s city Health Department has yet to acknowledge our six-day-old request for these records. Barbot also has refused to engage in any substantive discussion of post-Lowenthal death actions subsequent to Meadowbrook’s tardy, incomplete, and inaccurate incident report on the Lowenthal drowning. State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene officials, for their part, have at least explained their limited actions while asserting that more specific inspection and investigation are in the city’s jurisdiction.

The city is not obliged under the law to correspond with me during the pendency of a public information request; it is only required to produce the documents within 30 days or to assert a reason for denial. But public officials routinely acknowledge receipt of routine public records requests.

The Baltimore government’s apparent attempt to ignore the Lowenthal outrage into oblivion is a fool’s errand. Below, complete texts of recent emails and faxes to Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Koontz, Commissioner Barbot, and her public information officer Tiffany Thomas Smith. The cc’d parties in the original email below are the Maryland secretary of health, another state health official, and the state health communications director.

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From: Irvin Muchnick
To: mayor@baltimorecity.gov
Cc: Elizabeth Koontz; Oxiris Barbot; Tiffany Thomas Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 7:40 AM
Subject: Media inquiry

I invite the Mayor and/or the Health Commissioner to comment for a new story noting that both of your offices seem to be refusing even to acknowledge receiving our public information act application for the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center public pool license documents. This inaction in response to a routine request for an indisputably public record is compliant with the law in the sense that you have 30 days to produce the requested record, and you do not appear to be obliged to acknowledge receipt of requests before then. Your continued silence, however, shows dubious faith.

We are at the seventh day since the submission of our request.

Thank you,

Irvin Muchnick

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From: Irvin Muchnick
To: mayor@baltimorecity.gov
Cc: Elizabeth.Koontz; Oxiris Barbot; Tiffany Thomas Smith
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:12 AM
Subject: Follow-up: Maryland Public Information Act request

BY EMAIL AND FAX

Mayor Rawlings-Blake:

I am following up on the message and fax below, to which I have received no response. Please advise.

Thank you,

Irvin Muchnick

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From: Irvin Muchnick
To: mayor@baltimorecity.gov
Cc: Elizabeth Koontz; Oxiris Barbot; Tiffany Thomas Smith
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 9:26 AM
Subject: Maryland Public Information Act request from news media representative

BY EMAIL AND FAX

Mayor Rawlings-Blake:

I have received no response from Health Commissioner Barbot on my request, under the Maryland Public Information Act, for copies of the original and most recent public pool license applications of Meadowbrook Aquatic Center. (See the email below of last Thursday; there has been no reply to it or to a follow-up email sent yesterday.)

Please acknowledge receipt of this public information request, and advise as to its disposition and procedures. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Irvin Muchnick

cc (by email):

Ms. Elizabeth Koontz, Executive Assistant to the Mayor
Dr. Oxiris Barbot, Commissioner of Health
Ms. Tiffany Thomas Smith, Public Information Officer, Baltimore Department of Health

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From: Irvin Muchnick
To: Oxiris Barbot; Tiffany Thomas Smith
Cc: Joshua Sharfstein; Cliff Mitchell; Karen Black
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 6:42 AM
Subject: Maryland Public Information Act request

This is an official request for copies of public records under the Maryland Public Information Act.

I seek copies of the original license application and the most recent renewal application (including supplements and supporting documents) filed with the Baltimore City Health Department by the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center. The application process is described at http://baltimorehealth.org/ecology.html#pool.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Irvin Muchnick