Baltimore’s CitiStat director steps down

One of Baltimore city government’s data leaders is leaving City Hall.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Sameer Sidh stepped down as head of CitiStat recently. He is taking a new job as chief of staff at Towson University under President Kim Schatzel. Sidh told the Sun the opportunity was “too good to pass up.”
Read the full story
The agency, which was pioneered under former Mayor Martin O’Malley, is designed to track performance of city government.
Sidh, who formerly worked at Maryland’s StateStat, was hired by former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in 2015 to revive the agency after a period of questions about its own performance. Sidh joined as the city looked to broaden use of data to track overall quality of life metrics, as well as internal government performance.
Mayor Catherine Pugh discussed her own hopes for the program last week at the CityLab Baltimore “pop-up summit.” She said she wants to use data to track more metrics in areas such as education and public health.
She seemed to be setting the stage for more changes to the agency. Now, it’s apparent that a new leader will be responsible for carrying out that vision.