Baltimore County Council mostly silent on settlement paid to brother of county executive’s friend

Baltimore County officials’ reaction has been muted since The Baltimore Sun reported earlier this week that the county could pay up to $550,000 to keep secret the details of a settlement paid to the brother of County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr.’s friend.

The Sun reported Tuesday that the council had voted July 1 to pay another $200,000 to Baker-Donelson, a law firm the county has contracted with to defend itself against a public records lawsuit brought by former County Administrator Fred Homan.

Since July 2021, Homan has been seeking documents related to a $83,675 settlement the county paid retired firefighter Philip Tirabassi in 2020. Tirabassi is the brother of John Tirabassi, Olszewski’s friend and high school classmate.

Two council members, David Marks and Council Chair Izzy Patoka, expressed concern about the relationship between Olszewski and Philip Tirabassi, and said they would discuss the Baker-Donelson contract at a later date, but did not commit to taking any concrete action. Councilmembers Wade Kach, Mike Ertel, Pat Young, and Todd Crandell did not respond to requests for comment. Patoka and Councilman Julian Jones, a Woodstock Democrat, are expected to run for county executive in 2026 to succeed Olszewski, who is seeking a Congressional seat. Neither would answer when asked if they would have approved the settlement.

Olszewski has denied any wrongdoing. He said the county paid Tirabassi to avoid litigation after Tirabassi threatened to sue if Baltimore County backed out of an agreement to add retirement credits to his county pension. Olszewski said a former county attorney, Michael Raimondi, sent that agreement “without authorization” in January 2020.

Raimondi declined to comment when contacted Wednesday.

Patoka, a Pikesville Democrat, said he was unaware of Olszewski’s relationship with Tirabassi before The Sun’s article. He said he had not yet spoken with his fellow council members, but anticipated holding “informal discussions” in the coming weeks to see if there were any “proactive actions” the council could take.

“We need to assess what the ramifications are. This is really important, and something to revisit, to see if there’s something we can do,” said Patoka.

The council approved in a 6-0 vote without discussion to allocate an additional $200,000 for Baker-Donelson to continue defending the county against Homan’s lawsuit. The county has paid Baker-Donelson nearly $316,000 as of last month.

Jones was not present and did not vote.

Patoka did not answer when directly asked if he would have approved the settlement if he was county executive. He said he tried to maintain some distance with people he had “personal relationships with.”

“If I’m county executive, I have to be concerned with my actions and concerned about optics. I’m not in that situation, and I don’t think I’d ever be in that situation,” he said of Olszewski approving a settlement to a friend’s brother. “This is Baltimore. It’s a small community, and we all know each other. If there’s no impropriety, there’s no impropriety, no matter what it looks like.”

Olszewski, a Dundalk Democrat, has a cordial relationship with the council, which is split with four Democrats and three Republicans. This year, the council has engaged in a long-simmering political struggle with the administration over who has final authority over land-use and zoning decisions in the county, with the council vetoing some of Olszewski’s proposed legislation.

Jones previously sponsored a law in 2020 that required the Office of Law to annually notify the council of all settlements. In an interview last week, he told The Sun he was “concerned about the amount of money” the county was paying to defend itself against Homan’s lawsuit.

He declined to comment on Thursday, citing the ongoing litigation. When asked if he would have approved the settlement if he was county executive, Jones declined to answer.

Patoka and Jones are expected to run against each other for county executive if Olszewski wins in November . Olszewski has not said whom he would support to serve the remainder of his term, leaving the two to compete for his endorsement. In addition to bestowing his stamp of approval, he has the ability to transfer his $1.73 million in state campaign funds , which he cannot use in his federal race, to one of them or another candidate.

Young and Ertel, who are Democrats, and Kach and Crandell, who are Republicans, did not respond to requests for comment.

Marks, an Upper Falls Republican, was unavailable for an interview. In a text message, he said he had “no insight” into Olszewski’s relationship with the Tirabassi family and “cannot recall ever meeting” Philip Tirabassi.

“What I will say is that this request occurred in the middle of an extraordinarily busy time for the council, and I think we will be asking more questions over the coming two weeks,” Marks wrote.

David Williams, the president of good governance group Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said the lawsuit fees came at an inopportune time when federal COVID aid is ending , the state faces budget cuts , and counties will shoulder a bigger burden of the costly Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan.

“There’s a basic problem of transparency, and taxpayers are paying for it. Everyone’s in a pinch,” he said. “I don’t know what’s more troubling, the cost or the transparency issues.”

Olszewski has touted his administration as the most “transparent in Baltimore County’s history.” One of his first acts when first elected in December 2018 was to prevent officials from lobbying Baltimore County for one year after leaving county employment. He then created the first Baltimore County Office of the Inspector General.

His administration has clashed on a handful of occasions with Inspector General Kelly Madigan. Olszewski later sided with Madigan when Jones unsuccessfully tried to soften her investigative powers with a series of bill amendments last December.

“I look at (this settlement) and what the Inspector General went through,” Williams said. “This doesn’t bode well. It’s not a good sign for transparency in Baltimore County.”