Additional AACPS Open Meetings Act Violations Confirm Transparency and Compliance Failures
A second formal finding by the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board (the “Compliance Board”) that the Anne Arundel County Board of Education (the “County Board”) violated the Open Meetings Act (the “Act”) underscores the need for judicial review of the County’s redistricting process, according to One Crofton. This additional finding adds to a growing record of repeated transparency and compliance failures, calling into question the County Board’s Phase 2 redistricting decision and whether it can withstand meaningful scrutiny.
In its latest opinion, 20 OMCB 111, the Compliance Board found three separate violations of the Act, concluding that the County Board: (1) improperly excluded the public from portions of its deliberations; (2) engaged in undisclosed communications with counsel during a public meeting; and (3) failed to respond to complaints within statutorily required timelines. These findings follow an earlier opinion, 19 OMCB 347, which found that the County Board inappropriately recessed a public meeting for the purpose of consulting with counsel during the recess in the middle of its redistricting discussions at an earlier meeting.
Taken together, there is no longer any doubt that the process used to reach the County Board’s Phase 2 redistricting decision has, on more than one occasion, violated Maryland law.
“Numerous violations of the Open Meetings Act during the same decision-making process are not a coincidence,” said One Crofton President Michael Chittenden. “This goes directly to the credibility of the process and the fundamental fairness of the outcome. Taken in light of a County Board member’s on-the-record comments about small group meetings in which other County Board members were excluded, the repeated pattern of violations is troubling.”
One Crofton together with its president have filed a Petition for Judicial Review in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, challenging the State Board of Education’s (the “State Board”) decision to dismiss the appeal on standing grounds before the merits could be heard. A motion to stay the implementation of the redistricting decision is also pending.
The Compliance Board’s findings further undercut the basis for that dismissal. The redistricting decision affecting Crofton was made through a process now confirmed to have repeatedly excluded the public from meaningful observation. Despite that, the State Board declined to allow the case to proceed to a hearing where the underlying data, assumptions, and decision-making process could be examined openly. At a minimum, the public should expect that a decision reached through a process now found to violate the law would be subject to full and transparent review.
Counsel for One Crofton, Patrick Seidel of Silverman Thompson, reinforces that the pattern is now impossible to ignore.
“The County Board has now been found, more than once, to have violated the Open Meetings Act during the very process used to make this decision. That means key parts of the deliberation happened outside of public view. In light of that, it is telling the County Board has refused to defend the data and process used to reach its decision at any point in the process. Instead of requiring the County Board to do so, the State Board attempted to sidestep a meaningful review by applying an unprecedented and unsupported standard. When you look at that sequence of events, it raises an obvious question about what they don’t want reviewed.”
Under Maryland law, the County Board is required to address these findings in an open meeting and incorporate them into the public record. One Crofton representatives intend to attend the April 8 meeting to ensure that the findings are acknowledged on the record.
“For well over a year, this community has been asking for a transparent and data-driven process, and was instead told, admonished even, that it was,” Chittenden added. “At this point, refusal to defend its own data coupled with multiple violations of the law intended to ensure transparency in decision making speaks for itself. This cannot go unanswered, and we will not stop until we have exhausted every avenue to compel the County Board to defend this indefensible process.”
