February 4, 2009To Members of the Harford County Delegation:As the duly elected Chair and Vice Chair of the delegation, we believe we would be grossly negligent in our duty to the citizens of Harford County if we, without further legal review, were simply to accept the legality of the vote taken February 2, 2009, in aspecial meting called by Delegate J.B. Jennings at approximately 9:30 p.m. in the Silver Room of the State House.We believe the meeting violated both the Open Meetings Act and Roberts Rulesof Order. The Open Meetings Act provides that a public body shall give reasonableadvance notice of a meeting. We do not believe the notice provided by Delegate J. B.Jennings at close of session Monday evening for a special meeting to take place minuteslater in the Silver Room of the State House was reasonable advance notice. At the timehe requested the meeting, the entire delegation had been present on the floor for at least90 minutes. During that time, Delegate Jennings could have called each of us as we allhave access to phones next to our desks on the floor. Alternatively, during those 90minutes, he could have provided each of us with written notice as our desks are in close proximity of each other on the floor. Although the Open Meetings Act requires writtennotice only when it is reasonable to do so, written notice would have been reasonableunder the circumstances on February 2, 2009. We understand such last minute oral noticewould be reasonable under certain circumstances, such as to gain consensus from thedelegation on an amendment to delegation legislation under consideration. Here,however, the meeting was being called to remove the delegation’s duly-elected chair andvice chair. As the delegation had a regularly scheduled meeting set for Friday, February6, 2009, it would have been reasonable for such action to be brought up at this regularlyscheduled meeting and certainly not at a special meeting unless reasonable advancenotice could be provided. Furthermore, we now know this meeting had been plannedlong before 9:30 p.m. that evening because Delegate Mary-Dulany James already hadobtained an opinion from the Attorney General about whether a member of the delegationcould call a meeting of the delegation by announcing it on the floor of the House andwhether the members of the delegation present for the meeting could vote if both theChair and Vice Chair of the delegation were absent or declined to call for a vote. Giventhis written evidence that the calling of the meeting from the floor had been preplanned,oral notice just minutes before the meeting is to start is not reasonable and, therefore,violates the Maryland statute on open meetings.We do not accept the opinion provided to Delegate James by Assistant AttorneyGeneral Kathryn Rowe because it ignores the fact the Harford County Delegation hasalways followed Roberts Rules of Order and would be required to follow Roberts Rulesin conducting the special meeting called for February 2, 2009, if the actions at that
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