The Hagerstown (Md) paper reported that examination of a budget showed, apparently, that someone -- really, some business -- was going to get $100,000 of taxpayer money to locate to the county.
Strangely, nothing about the activity ever surfaced in the County Commission meetings of March or April 2011, where the deal with the anonymous company was apparently approved.
Nothing appeared in the minutes.
This is an excellent case study of how to examine meeting records in Maryland to see if a given "public body" -- a board, commission, etc. -- is following the law. THe MDT&A blog will follow each step, from checking on the public record to the county commissioners' response to the final Opinion issued by the Open Meetings Compliance Board.
See the post on Maryland Transparency 'n' Accountability or ... read a little more about why.
Go sub-squiggle for more about Washington County's Cone of Silence:
Some Open Meetings violations can be somewhat abstract. Others can hinge on how vaguely-worded parts of the law get interpreted by the Open Meetings Compliance Board. (What I might think a phrase means may not be what the supposed violator thinks, and the compliance board might have to sort it out).
But this is very clear. Anyone who is aware of the news article learns that the promised payment was found a year or more after the fact when a reporter was looking over a budget.
So first off: that's not how county commissions are supposed to inform the public of their meeting discussions. It's a classic case of The Red Flag.
Next, you look at minutes from the time period to see if it was included, but somehow got overlooked by the reporter and the public. To Washington County's credit, they post their meeting minutes on the Web. This is far from universal in Maryland.
Ah, but there's nothing in the minutes. And in fact, the rote recitals in them don't meet the minimum standards in the Open Meetings Act. They are prototypical boilerplate, which make them an excellent example.
That's what the first MDT&A blog post about Washington County's commissioners concerns: how to look at minutes and see if what must be there is indeed there.
The process applies to school boards, town councils, state agencies and the like in Maryland.
Links to (1) the first news article; (2) the second, followup news article; (3) Washington County minutes excerpts; and (4) their meeting "closing statements" are included in the blog post.
The second (which is also up) shows the Open Meetings Compliance Board complaint letter that was sent.
http://md-ta.blogspot.com/...