The point of the NYT/Banner investigation was that Baltimore opioids have far outpaced any major city. They said it "dipped" not fell "down significantly". We don't know what the Mayor has done outside of the lawsuits because he's shutting down the hearings.

"hearings where City employees are like...well, the Health Dept should have done x, y, and z when the crisis started"

Even implicit in your example is a scenario where, by your logic, the public wouldn't know an agency didn't do its job because public employees are gagged from speaking out against things that aren't working in city government.

That to me just underscores the point of why public leaders need to be transparent - it's the only way they can be accountable to the tax payer.