When Persuasion Fails, Use Intimidation
All elected and appointed officials in Maryland are supposed to march in lock-step with Governor O’Malley’s coercive statewide growth management plan known as PlanMaryland.
If dissent is expressed, over-the-top measures will be taken to de-legitimize it. Back in October 2011, I participated with several other speakers at a public forum organized by Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild. “PlanMaryland: At the Crossroads” identified technical errors and faulty assumptions that undermine the plan’s viability. It was widely publicized and about 150 people were in attendance from members of the Governor’s cabinet to state senators to county commissioners to local activists. Additionally, the media was present and provided lots of coverage, even live-blogging the event. All the presentations were posted on the County website (available here). A nominal fee was proposed to cover costs, but only about 1/4 of the participants paid it proving that the fee was not an impediment to attendance.
There was no call to order, no motion set before the board, no votes taken, no direction given to staff. In other words, there was nothing at this forum that in any way could be confused with a meeting of an elected body set to take action.
But the hypersensitive environmentalist community was offended that a forum would be organized that challenged their precious assumptions, so they sought a ruling from the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board who has issued an absurd ruling that the event was a “closed meeting,” thus violating the state’s open meetings law. The Carroll County Board of Commissioners has posted a response on its website showing that there is at least some common sense left in Maryland.
Date: February 2nd, 2012 @ 11:08



