Day One: I Search for My Jaw

In my work -- writer for the Kent County News in Chestertown MD -- I have become familiar with the Maryland Open Meetings Act. Our reporters have had some issues, some big, some little, with local "public bodies" such as the Kent County Commissioners, the Town of Chestertown, Town of Rock Hall, the county Public Library, the county Community Center Authority, and so on. (Kent County has five incorporated towns: Chestertown, Millington, Betterton, Galena, Rock Hall).

The requirements in the law are pretty simple: vote and document the reason for closing a meeting to the public; discuss only the issues identified in the motion; don't talk policy at any time; and report on the discussion in general terms in late minutes the public can read. (Detailed minutes must be kept for one year, but don't have to be made available to the public).

That's the gist of it. Simple.

In some cases, especially where there were glaring procedural errors, the paper has filed complaints with the Open Meetings Compliance Board in order to serve notice that government is being scrutinized.

As I looked harder at the law (which is brief, and accompanied with a fairly good Open Meetings Act Manual on the Attorney General's Web site) and looked at compliance, I realized that I needed a standard of comparison for our local jurisdictions.

The Att'y General does not have any "best practices" nor an ombudsman; the only way to resolve anything is for a citizen or organization to file a formal complaint. This leads to an adversarial climate, since inevitably the person responding on behalf of the "public body" is a lawyer. The three-member Compliance Board is also, of course, lawyers.

The statewide pace of complaints is about 2 a month; with a couple hundred "public bodies" meeting multiple times a month in Maryland, it's clear people aren't looking at what goes on. The OAG's position is that lack of complaints is "good news" about compliance.

I began looking at Maryland counties, and at some towns or cities. I specifically chose Talbot County (near Kent on the Eastern Shore, but much larger) and Centreville (the next county seat south of Chestertown) as the guinea pigs for initial scrutiny.

I also began to look at how counties were putting their notices, agendas, and minutes on the Web and copied, where available, the public information they had placed online beginning 1/1/07 until about 7/1/07. I figured six months' material would give anyone enough material to discern patterns.

Why start a dry and dull blog? Well, open government's really important. Dick Cheney and Dubya and their boys and girls are the best advertisement there is.

I'm not sure it's dry and dull. And it shouldn't be left to the lawyers. In Maryland every citizen has the right to file a complaint by fax, mail or e-mail. Open meetings problems are most certainly ignored by Maryland's media, except on rare occasions. Even in cases where the media might mention an irregularity, it's not always followed by a complaint. That astonishes me.

Take Preston, Md., where two of the three town councilmembers were holding meetings whenever they wanted to, telling no one, and screwing up to the point that a special recall election was held and out they went. The local paper mentioned the secret meetings; but no complaint ever went to the Attorney General.

But what got the blog out of the back of my mind and onto a page was the Md. Critical Area Commission "panel" or subcommittee meeting I attended on July 30.

At that meeting, the chairman suddenly said: "According to the state open meetings act ... I'm closing the meeting for legal advice." The two dozen members of the public were sent packing.

The CAC is one of Maryland's most influential bodies; it determines what development can occur within 1,000 feet of tidal waters. Millions of dollars ride on its decisions. Sprawl follows (or doesn't follow) its decisions.

And they don't know the law.

Unfortunately, the chairman neglected to follow the law; worse, the Executive Director of CAC, an Assistant Attorney General, and the Chairwoman of the 29-member full Commission were there. None said, "Umm, there's a procedure here ..."

And that indicates to me that they don't know jack, or perhaps care jack, about the Open Meetings Act; by extension, they're dissing the public.

I'm back in Kent County but my jaw, still missing, is somewhere in Annapolis.

The result Monday was the Land Speed Record for filing a complaint: in by e-mail at 4:30 and acknowledged by the state Attorney General in a letter Aug. 1.

The complaint/response/opinion usually takes about 6 weeks.

MD:OMA is a place for analysis and opinion, and documenting not-yet-rectified problems with things such as a jurisdiction's minutes. There isn't a central clearinghouse for issues and information, although the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association does its part from time to time.

The Kent County News only covers Kent County; we don't generally get involved with statewide news and we do not have a staff of "investigative reporters." Where there are Kent open meetings issues, the paper addresses them.

In blundering around, trying to learn more and find examples of excellent compliance, I've found a lot of questionable practice around the state. That's what I plan to look at here.

For the record, the Kent County News itself and Chesapeake Publishing Company aren't associated with my blog. These are my personal research findings, own exasperated groans, and personal conclusions.

But by walking through the Critical Area Commission complaint I just filed, I hope to make it easier for every Maryland resident, every citizen, to understand how this works; that it's easy to be a watchdog; it's important to be a watchdog; and no, your local government probably isn't following the state's very minimal openness requirements. Go look and ask and find out.

I hope that other reporters or citizen activists will speak up too.