Baltimore
Regional Partnership
1000 Friends of Maryland
* Baltimore Urban League * Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Citizens’ Planning and Housing Association * Environmental Defense Fund
August 25, 1999
Walter Sondheim, Jr., Chairman
Maryland Open Meetings Law Compliance Board
c/o Office of the Attorney General
200 St. Paul Place
Baltimore, MD 21202
Dear Chairman Sondheim:
I am writing to file a formal complaint
against the Baltimore Metropolitan Council for holding a private meeting
of a quorum of its members during the Annual Conference of the Maryland
Association of Counties (MACO)during the weekend of August 21st and 22nd,
1999. The meeting was held for the purpose of discussing a vote on air
quality conformity by its Transportation Steering Committee to be held on
Tuesday, August 24, 1999. The closed meeting was reported in The Baltimore
Sun on Wednesday, August 25, 1999 and has been confirmed by a staff member
of more than one member of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council.
The Baltimore Metropolitan Council was
created by Article 78 of the Annotated Code of Maryland. The
Transportation Steering Committee is the federally-designated metropolitan
planning organization for the Baltimore region, as expressed in the BMC's
bylaws and in a Memorandum of Agreement signed by each of the county
executives, then-Governor Schaefer, and the Maryland Department of
Transportation on July 1, 1992. Both are public agencies covered by the
Open Meetings Law as such should be conducting their meetings in public,
with due notice. We believe that the meeting of the chief elected
officials constituted a meeting of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council.
Moreover, we believe that the meeting was prejudicial to the decision of
the Transportation Steering Committee to proceed with using 1990 vehicle
registration data in the air quality conformity process.
If this meeting was held, we believe it to
be a violation of several sections of the Open Meetings Law. First, no
notice was given of the meeting as required by section 10-506 of the
Annotated Code of Maryland. As a result of notice not being given, the
public did not have the opportunity to attend the meeting as required by
section 10-507 and therefore the meeting did not constitute a "public
meeting" as required by section 10-505.
We urge the Open Meetings Law Compliance
Board to review this matter and to take action as appropriate.
Sincerely,
Al Barry, Chair of the CPHA Committee on
the Region, Citizen's Planning & Housing Association
Dru Schmidt-Perkins, Executive Director, 1000 Friends of Maryland
Michael Replogle, Federal Transportation Director, Environmental Defense
Fund
