On the issue of opioids, Mayor Brandon Scott and Councilman Mark Conway agree the city has a problem. They agree, kind of, on some ways to address it. But that’s about it.

Conway on Monday said he was calling a long-awaited hearing on the overdose crisis to take place Feb. 25 — one of two councilmembers this week to announce opioid hearings. By doing so Conway said he was hoping to get away from what he called “political gamesmanship” from the Scott administration, which last summer intervened to stop Conway from holding a similar hearing.

Scott, in response, accused the councilman of gamesmanship of his own.

“Councilman Conway’s political grandstanding endangers the city’s response rather than helps it,” Bryan Doherty, Scott’s deputy chief of staff, wrote in an email. “It is beyond shameful that he is putting personal face time ahead of the best interest of the city.”

Conway on Tuesday took issue with the Scott administration’s characterization of his efforts, saying in an interview that his priority is to “save lives.”

“I’ve gotten to a point where I just need to do my job,” Conway said. “The mayor’s comment is what it is. I’m tired of playing games.”

At the center of their fight is a sprawling lawsuit, which predates Scott as mayor, that the city brought against several drug distributors and manufacturers who are alleged to have flooded the region with highly addictive prescription pain medications. The suit went to trial in the fall (a jury found the companies liable) and a judge is expected to determine in the coming weeks whether to award even more money. Baltimore has secured $668.5 million from the companies so far.

The Scott administration has said since May, when The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times published the first in a series of articles detailing the depths of the overdose problem, that discussing the issue could jeopardize the legal case. Most of Conway’s colleagues on City Council have been willing to play ball with that argument, but Conway said the city is “past that stage” of litigation and that it is time for public hearings.

Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, chair of the city’s Public Health and Environment Committee and a strong ally of the mayor, said Monday she would hold four hearings of her own on the topic. However, Porter said she would not schedule them until after the judge issued a final ruling. The meetings were slated to be “co-chaired” by various members of the council, including Conway, who is vice chair of Porter’s committee.

“Public health is so interdisciplinary,” she said. “It’s not just health care. It’s transportation, it’s housing, it’s environment.”

But then Conway scheduled his own hearing, a move Porter said caught her by surprise and that she thought was designed to undermine her.

“He felt the need to move forward,” Porter said of Conway. “That’s his purview. I’m not going to let him change my character. I’m still going to move forward with collaborative ideas.”

Scott’s office suggested that by calling a hearing on opioids Conway had overstepped his “jurisdiction” in an effort to “center himself in the public narrative.”

As chair of the Public Safety Committee Conway oversees the city’s first-responders, who are often the first people to arrive on scene when someone calls 911 to report an overdose. In return, Conway accused the mayor’s office of overstepping by meddling in Conway’s dealings with agency leaders who come before his committee.

Conway met recently with Fire Chief James Wallace to talk about opioids and a staff member from Scott’s office, whose job it is to interface with council members, sat in on the meeting. At one point in the meeting Conway asked the staffer to leave so he could speak with Wallace privately, but the staffer refused, Conway said. A source with knowledge of the meeting but who asked not to be identified in order to speak freely about the encounter, confirmed the exchange.

Members of Scott’s administration regularly attend meetings between council members and agency leadership, but Conway took exception to being blocked from having a private conversation with Wallace, something he said he has been able to do in the past. Conway said the inability to speak privately with agencies was “unacceptable” and elicits a sense of “paranoia” from Scott’s administration.

“If we’re going to address this issue you can’t follow me around or sit in on all my calls,” Conway said.

The Wallace meeting came on the heels of a bill Conway introduced last month that would require medical first-responders to carry buprenorphine, a drug that treats the symptoms of opioid withdrawal, to be administered after someone is revived with naloxone.

Scott’s office slammed Conway over that bill, calling its text — it is two paragraphs in length — simplistic and calling him irresponsible. Some first-responders in the city already carry buprenorphine and there are similar programs in Maryland, but state regulations limit who can administer the drug. Scott’s office said previously it has been working with state regulators in the background to expand which first-responders are eligible to carry and administer the medication.

Council President Zeke Cohen is a co-sponsor of Conway’s legislation. Cohen has sought to strike a balance between being “laser-focused” on oversight and working as a partner with the mayor to better the city.

With Scott again applying public pressure on the council over Conway’s planned hearing, the dispute between the two men may serve as Cohen’s first true test. Only Conway or Cohen can cancel the Feb. 25 hearing

As of Tuesday Cohen had not publicly taken a side; a spokesperson for his office declined to comment for this article.