Starr to Continue Use of Spurious Confidentiality Agreements to Silence Participants in Public Process

Superintendent Joshua Starr has released his recommendation for a new site selection process for the selection of the B-CC Middle School #2 site.  Included in his recommendation is the continued use of "confidentiality agreements" to attempt to silence participants in this process even before the process begins. 


What if a participant does not agree to sign the confidentiality agreement? Does that mean they will be barred from participating on this PUBLIC committee?  


What's in one of these "confidentiality agreements?" Contrary to Superintendent Starr's memo, the Maryland Open Meetings Act does not make any provisions for the signing of pre-meeting confidentiality agreements. The Maryland Open Meetings Act favors open meetings over closed, and only permits meetings to be closed when the majority of a committee votes in open session to close a meeting.  Closing a meeting is not something that is pre-ordained through a prior signed agreement, nor is closing a meeting required by the Open Meetings Act!  


Superintendent Starr's memo attempts to bind participants to closing meetings as a pre-requisite for serving on a site selection committee.  


Is Superintendent Starr going to make one of these "confidentiality agreement" documents public? 


If he doesn't, we will.  

111108 Site Selection B-CC MS2