Thursday, November 5, 2015

Exclusive Video: Board of Ed and Annapolis Delegation Discuss Construction, Solar Panels, Interrupted Education, Equity and More

Today, the Montgomery County Board of Education met with some members of the Annapolis Delegation. The Agenda for this meeting is at this link.

The Board of Education does not video tape this meeting and does not record minutes for this meeting.  These meetings are open meetings under the Maryland Open Meetings Act and the public is welcome to attend and record these meetings.  

This video tape represents the last 40 minutes of today's meeting.  The video includes the end of the formal presentation, and the question and answer session.  

These are very interesting discussions.  Unfortunately, the Board of Education does not make these discussions available to the public.  In fact, as you will see in this video, the Student Member of the Board went so far as to stand in front of the camera as some sort of juvenile attempt to disrupt the recording of this meeting. The Montgomery County Board of Education is still hostile to the concept of Open Meetings.


9 comments:

  1. In the video Song talks about the three middle school properties (61 acres total) as possible sites for ground-installed solar arrays. He says that it\'s in the exploratory phase and nothing has been finalized. Isn't it true that a contract(s) has already been signed between MCPS and Sun Edison? Is there any way the public could see the contract(s)? It would be interesting to know if there is anything in the existing contract(s), which discusses ground-installed solar.

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  2. Well ... file an OMCB complaint. (Doesn't it get tiresome?)

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  3. What is an O M C B complaint?

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    Replies
    1. http://www.thesentinel.com/pgs/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1257%3Aboard-of-education-violates-open-meetings-act&Itemid=766

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    2. The board clearly didn't keep it's pledge to come into compliance. Preventing someone from recording part of the meeting is a violation of the state's public meetings law in my eyes. Shameful a child was used to block filming.

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    3. That tactic would be categorized as child exploitation.

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  4. Child exploitation? The public is allowed to record meetings, both with video and audio recording equipment, as long as it does not disturb the meeting. In this case, a child intentionally interfered with the recording of the meeting by a private individual. The person recording the meeting wasn't disturbing the meeting. The meeting chair was responsible for preventing the child from disrupting the recording.

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    Replies
    1. MCPS communications Brian Edwards sent the child over to stand in front of the camera.

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    2. Apparently, it was not the "invisible child."

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