Dell may avoid a political thrashing

I am saddened to read recent stories circulating the possibility that Carroll County Commissioner Donald Dell may not run for a fourth term as commissioner. As a community leader who has opposed Commissioner Dell on a number of issues, I was eagerly anticipating his being trounced in his own party's primary. It is a shame that the citizens of Carroll County may miss giving him the sound thrashing in polls this fall in an effort to repudiate his last four years in office.

I can understand why Mr. Dell relishes the public's concern over his political future as a respite from the usual grilling he gets over most of his ill-considered decisions. Coming into office with a campaign slogan of "Keep it Country," Commissioner Dell has done anything but. He has consistently allowed his office to be compromised by the influence of development special-interests, and has sold out both the public and his longtime constituents, the farmers, to residential developers who encourage sprawl at the expense of our quality of life. After removing all oversight of the county's concurrency management initiative early in his term, he and Commissioner Frazier only admitted recently that there were no measures (even a database) in place to determine the rate of growth, never mind any controls.

Truth be told, Commissioner Dell has supported just about every single development initiative proposed, including the now infamous ZORC amendment, which almost single handedly rewrote the book on zoning, forcing the state to step in. Only when he was confronted by the fact that his farm preservation legacy was in jeopardy did he make an eleventh-hour decision to back off his support of the amendment.

Commissioner Dell has contributed mightily to making Carroll a laughingstock in Annapolis and continues to sow discord in Baltimore and the surrounding region by alienating the county from the state and all other cooperative decision making. Even today he plans to rewrite the county's watershed management protection guidelines pertaining to Liberty Reservoir without so much as entertaining a discussion with Baltimore or neighboring counties on its impact. Together with Commissioner Frazier, Mr. Dell believes that he was elected to make decisions for people and as such, public input into those decisions is really not needed. For Mr. Dell, it's mostly a nuisance. His approach to the Piney Run WTP speaks volumes about his disdain for public opinion and proper protocol.

Commissioner Dell's record on economic development is anemic; his leadership of the county, ineffectual and clumsy. He has made a career of shutting the public out of the decision making process. Should he decide not to run for another four years, he will leave Carroll County with high property taxes, a water crisis, declining and overcrowded schools and a reprehensible record of uncontrolled growth. With budget deficits sure to follow, Commissioner Dell has already mortgaged our future and forced those who follow to enact new taxes and make sweeping reforms.

If Commissioner Dell indeed has nothing better to occupy his time with, there are still a few days left for him to decide to run for re-election. While it's entirely possible that we may miss giving Mr. Dell his well-deserved whooping in the primaries this fall, we will surely not forget him anytime soon.

Ross Dangel

Eldersburg

Building permits require scrutiny

In a recent news article ("Building permit requests pour in," May 21), the citizens of Carroll County were informed that "developers have bombarded the permits office with questions and building applications." Mike Maring, the bureau chief of Permits, Inspections and Reviews, reported that about 130 permit applications were flooding his office each day. Ironically the article accompanying this was a concern from Carroll County firefighters that unchecked growth was surpassing the capability of fire services to adequately respond to emergencies.

I am urging the current Board of County Commissioners to look closely at this flood of permit applications and recognize this inundation for what it is, a last-minute attempt to circumvent sensible managed growth in Carroll County. If the current Board of Commissioners cannot decide on a concurrency management ordinance, they should not cripple the future Board by allowing this last-ditch filing of permits to be processed without concern for the quality of life we enjoy in Carroll County.

Perry Jones

Union Bridge

Make negotiations open to the public

During the Board of Education's regular monthly meeting on June 12, the board discussed conducting collective bargaining negotiations in public session. Employee bargaining groups and representatives from the Board of Education currently conduct these negotiations in closed session. The citizens of Carroll County possess significant and compelling interests in having public negotiations between these groups.

According to the Fourth Edition of the Open Meetings Act Manual prepared by the Office of the Maryland Attorney General, the Maryland Open Meetings Act is based on the General Assembly's policy determination in favor of open decision-making by governmental bodies. It is essential to the maintenance of a democratic society that, except in special and appropriate circumstances, public business be performed in an open and public manner, and citizens be allowed to observe the performance of public officials and the deliberation and decisions that the making of public policy involves. The general rule is that if a public body is meeting on the subject matter covered by the Open Meetings Act, the body must meet in open session, and exceptions themselves are to be "strictly construed in favor of open meetings of public bodies."

The Court of Appeals has observed, "It is clear that the Act applies, not only to final decisions made by the public body exercising legislative functions at a public meeting, but as well as all deliberations which precede the actual legislative act or decision, unless authorized by [the Act] to be closed to the public." Additionally, a public body may not avoid an open meeting merely because the topic is controversial or potentially embarrassing. Nothing in the Open Meetings Act itself requires a public body to invoke an exception; unless some other confidentiality law applies, it may meet in open session even if, under the Act, it could legally meet in closed session.

The Court of Special Appeals, on Aug. 5, 1982, found that "while the Board [of Education] must come to the bargaining table with an open mind, prepared to negotiate a contract, it may conduct the bargaining process in public."

Under section 10-508(a)(9) of the Annotated Code of Maryland, a public body may "conduct collective bargaining negotiations or consider matter that relate to the negotiations" in closed session. While closed negotiations has been the practice in Carroll County for many years, changes to sections 6-408, 6-501, and 6-510 during the 2002 Legislative Sessions have expanded the scope of possible matters that may be discussed during negotiations to the point where it is imperative to conduct public negotiations.

The preamble to the Open Meetings Act talks about letting the sunshine in on the subject so that constituents can see it. It is in everyone's best interest -- the taxpayers, the community, school system employees, and Board members -- to have negotiations open to the public.

C. Scott Stone

Hampstead

Board of Education member