March 21, 2012
A coalition of Montgomery County residents today filed a lawsuit against
Montgomery County and the Montgomery County Department of General
Services alleging that the county is in violation of the Maryland Public
Information Act.
For the entire article, go to:
http://potomac.patch.com/articles/wmcca-brickyard-coalition-sue-county-over-public-information-request
I'm a candidate for the Montgomery County Board of Education. Here is my platform for transparency (from my website http://www.aliforeducation.com/issues/)
ReplyDeleteThe current Board of Education has shown a high-handed disregard for transparency in its meetings and proceedings. It has been cited at least 3 times in the past several months for violating state open meetings laws which require that meetings of government bodies should be open to the public. These citations were issued for:
1) Discussions of the plan to transfer the Brickyard Road site (in Potomac) to the County Council to convert it to a soccer field.
2) The process of selecting the Rock Creek Hills Local Park (in Kensington) as the site of a new middle school.
3) The process of selecting of Superintendent Joshua Starr.
This unlawful behavior is unacceptable and must stop. Despite these multiple citations by the state's Open Meeting Compliance Board, I have seen no evidence that the MCPS Board of Education is serious about changing its ways.
It shows a tremendous disregard for the citizens of Montgomery County and the members of the MCPS community (students, teachers, administrators and other support staff).
Saqib,
ReplyDeleteWould you support Checkbook Online for MCPS as has been instituted at state and local governments (including public school systems) across the country?
I caution you all to be cautious of the platform illuminated here by Saqib. He matches his rhetoric to the listener.
ReplyDeleteAs compared to the Apple Ballot candidates who when elected don't return phone calls, don't meet with parents, don't respond to parent concerns and violate the Maryland Open Meetings Act.
DeleteAnd - most importantly - don't even represent classroom teachers!
Shall we talk about why there are two Apple Ballot endorsements in Mr. Ali's race? Why couldn't the "teachers" agree on a candidate? From what we have heard the teacher representatives did pick a candidate.
But the UNION handler picked someone else. So one endorsement represents the UNION handler, and the other represents the classroom teachers?
Lots of good candidates in this race. Hope parents turn out and vote for someone that can represent THEM.
Let us not forget that Saqib Ali is the person who was responsible for putting General Assembly legislative committee votes online starting in 2010.
ReplyDeleteSee:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/annapolis/2009/11/delegates_seeks_to_put_md_comm.html
Prior to 2010, committee votes were, for all practical purposes, a secret. Unless a voter was willing to personally travel to Annapolis during business hours, it was almost impossible to find out who was responsible for supporting or killing a bill. (The real decisions are made in committee, not on the house floor.)
So while you may not agree with Mr. Ali's positions on various issues, his work on committee vote reporting is strong proof of his support for transparency.
Why hasn't Mr. Ali responded to the comment directed at him below?
ReplyDeletehttp://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2012/03/video-mont-co-civic-federation-boe.html
He apparently looks at this blog. Why not answer the question Mr. Ali?