Notice: This meeting will violate the Open Meetings Act

We might as well get right to the point on this one. The Board of Education's current site selection process is flawed. This isn't a guess, it's a fact.


The Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board has already determined that the Montgomery County Board of Education's secret, closed meeting, no minutes site selection process violates the Open Meetings Act.  Here's what they said in their September 15, 2011 decision: 

"We conclude that the site selection committee violated the Act by holding meetings without giving notice to the public, by failing to keep minutes, and by failing to follow any of the procedures required of a public body meeting out of the public eye."

Now that decision referred to the Site Selection for the BCC Middle School #2. But, at the very same time as this decision came out, a Site Selection Committee had already been meeting for months to select the location for the Upcounty Elementary School Holding Facility.  This Site Selection Committee has also been violating the Open Meetings Act. 


What to do?


The easy answer for the Board of Education was to schedule a fake meeting that pretends to comply with the Open Meetings Act! That meeting will take place Monday, October 3, 2011 at 1 PM at the Upcounty Regional Services Center.


Here's the glitch in the plan: in order for a public meeting to be closed, it must be closed based on a public vote of the committee members and only for specific reasons as allowed by the Maryland Open Meetings Act.  


Will the members of this committee vote to close the meeting? If they vote to close the meeting, will it be for a reason that is permitted by the Open Meetings Act?  For example, the committee can't vote to close a meeting based on the exception that they will be discussing the acquisition (purchase) of land, if in fact there is no discussion of a land purchase. What if the committee members don't vote to close this meeting? That means that the public will be able to sit in on a Site Selection Committee meeting! 


Bring a bag lunch and see what open government looks like in action, or at least see an attempt to cover up a broken process!

Monday, October 3, 2011
12900 Middlebrook Road 
Germantown, MD
Conference Rooms 3a/3b