Frustrated Baltimore city councilmembers got few answers during a Thursday night hearing as to why broken facilities and a toxic culture of bullying by management have been allowed to continue at the Department of Public Works for so long.

Ronald Silver II, 36, died of heat exhaustion while collecting trash on August 2nd, a day when the heat index reached 105 degrees. His mother Faith Johnson, barely held back tears as she remembered her son “I wake up every day still at 4:30 in the morning, expecting him to greet me, as he did every morning before he went to work picking up trash to provide for his family. He was our provider and our protector, and he is gone,” she said.

Silver had allegedly complained of pain for hours before he died.

The family is calling for answers and accountability. But due to the active investigation, there was little that agency leaders could share about the death of her son.

The agency’s many failures were acknowledged many times by Acting DPW Head Khalil Zaied.

“Our employees, especially those who are performing challenging, essential work, work that many do not want to do, deserve better conditions,” said Zaied, who has been on the job for just four months.

A series of damning investigative reports from the Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General found many DPW facilities were dirty, some completely lacking air conditioning for workers toiling in summer heat, water and Gatorade were not easily available or rationed.

Those reports found that DPW was reactive in providing cooling garments and other heat protecting measures. During Thursday’s hearing, councilmembers learned that heat training began on June 20th: the same day that the Inspector General reached out with concerns about safety problems.

More than anything, the Inspector pointed to a culture where employees were disregarded and disrespected by supervisors.

Some of the most egregious violations took place at the Reedbird Western Sanitation Yard in Cherry Hill: the same yard where Silver was stationed the morning of his death.

“We should not be sitting here because somebody passed away,” said Councilmember Robert Stokes, recognizing that the council had heard of the failing conditions of DPW facilities in previous hearings. “We should be ashamed of ourselves.”

During a presentation, DPW leaders said that 517 employees have completed 14 training sessions so far in 2024, again, all of those have taken place since Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming began her investigation.

Last week, DPW announced the hire of Conn Maciel Carey to go over the city’s heat and safety policies.

City Deputy Solicitor Stephen Salisbury defended the city’s decision by saying the firm’s experts could help create safety recommendations.

“... this third party review firm … was not brought in to defend the city from liability,” said Salisbury.  

But, councilmembers came in hard on that decision, pointing to the firm’s history of advocating against federal heat proposals and that it has defended employers with worker deaths. Multiple people called the firm “anti-union.” Union leaders and councilmembers alike questioned if another firm could be used; AFSCME 3 President Patrick Moran noted that the union has plenty of experts that could be consulted if the city needed advice.

“This is a firm that represents companies largely trying to push back on OSHA,” characterized Councilmember Zeke Cohen.

Councilmember Antonio Glover, himself a former city garbage worker, took particular outrage.

“We are the experts. We're telling you what we want. We're telling you what's going on with these agencies. And you know, it feels like things have fallen on deaf ears,” said Glover. “We're going out to get an independent contractor coming to city government to tell us what we already know.”

Salisbury said that nothing will be done with the results of the firm’s work without that report being publicly shared first; that is estimated to happen around late September. The deputy solicitor also said the firm was open to conversations with everyone, including the city’s unions.

While much was said about a toxicity among supervisors, councilmembers questioned whether those were directives coming all the way from the top. For instance, Councilmember Odette Ramos wanted to know who gave the order to ration fluids.

“In every facility? So somebody said, here's the Gatorade and water. You can only regulate it in certain circumstances. Are you kidding me? It's 105 degrees outside. You know, it makes no sense,” she said, to uproarious applause from a packed room of mostly unionized DPW workers. “So again, it's just indicative of a larger problem of the disconnect with your office and what's happening in middle management and what's happening on the ground, which is not acceptable.

Ramos didn’t get an answer as to who put out that directive.

The normally quiet Councilman Glover remembered his days on the back of a trash truck working ten hour days in 100 degree heat, seeing another coworker get stabbed and then being told to get back to work.

He recounted how it took him years to feel safe enough to speak out.

“But we want folks to feel our pain, see what we see, feel what we feel, and understand it the way we understand it… We know what we need. We're telling you what we need. We just need you to address those issues.”

Twenty million dollars of improvements are slated to take place at facilities over the next three years or more.

But that’s not going to work for Clarence Thomas, a shop supervisor at Reedbird who came to advocate as part of AFSCME.

“We need that now,” said Thomas.