Late last year, when the Worcester County Commissioners left a meeting item off their agenda, they were deemed to have violated the state’s Open Meetings Act.
But then, when they didn’t properly disclose that violation, it created a whole new violation.
That’s the conclusion from the state’s Open Meetings Compliance Board, who published their opinion March 5.
“We conclude the Board violated (the act) by failing to note of the agenda of its December 3, 2024, meeting that it would be announcing a prior violation of the Act,” the board wrote.
According to the Maryland Open Meetings Act, adopted in 1977, a public body must tell citizens ahead of time about any items scheduled to be discussed, by including the item on a published meeting agenda. However, if officials end up discuss something that wasn’t on the agenda, it then becomes a violation of the Act.
Violations are complaint driven. The arm of state government handling complaints is the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board. This board, acting on a complaint, found that the Worcester County Board of Commissioners committed a violation during its Sept. 17 meeting.
The violation was for failing to include on the agenda a discussion of funds earmarked for Pocomoke City, the compliance board wrote in a Nov. 25 opinion.
When an Open Meetings Act violation occurs, it doesn’t just end with the citation. The Act then requires officials to publicly disclose that violation at their very next meeting. For the commissioners, they next met on Dec. 3.
Here’s where the second violation happened: Again, any topic of discussion, including the disclosure of an Open Meetings Act violation, still must be included as a topic of discussion on the meeting agenda. But when the commissioners made their disclosure, they did it at the wrong time.