MD Court of Special Appeals Rejects Open Meetings Act Claim Against Baltimore City Council

This post was authored by Matthew Loeser, Esq.

In 2016, Baltimore City enacted legislation known as “Transform Baltimore,” which was its first comprehensive rezoning plan since 1971. Appellant, Joan Floyd, challenged the legislation under the Open Meetings Act, alleging that the Baltimore City Council and the Land Use and Transportation Committee, had violated the Act with respect to several meetings conducted near the time of the bill’s passage. The Circuit Court for Baltimore City, found no actionable violations of the Act and entered judgment in favor of the appellees.

On appeal, Floyd alleged that she needed the testimony of Committee members Mr. Young and Mr. Reisinger because Ms. Kunst, a staff member, was not competent to testify on matters relating to the Act. In response, the City argued that the court correctly quashed the subpoenas based on the doctrine of legislative privilege, which protected Mr. Young and Mr. Reisinger from having to testify about actions taken in the scope of legitimate legislative activity. The City further claimed that Maryland law did not recognize an Open Meetings Act exception to legislative privilege. The court found that questions specifically related to compliance with the Act would not be protected by legislative privilege and appellant was able to pursue these questions with Ms. Kunst. The court noted, however, that even if a tension between the doctrine of legislative privilege and the requirements of the Act existed, a judicial carve-out of an exception to the application of that doctrine in such cases would be inappropriate.

With regard to the Committee’s meeting of October 20, 2016, appellant argued that the Act was violated because the minutes “failed to reflect all but one of the votes taken at the meeting.” Floyd contended that although the Committee considered “hundreds of amendments” and “took over forty roll call votes and three voice votes” at that meeting, the official minutes reflected only one vote. The City described the votes referred to by appellant as “straw votes” used by the Committee to organize its final report on Bill 12-0152 to the Council. The court found the minutes of the meeting reflected the Committee’s action on that bill. As such, the circuit court’s holding that the minutes at issue met the statutory requirements was upheld.

Lastly, Floyd argued that the Council’s “luncheon meeting” on October 24, 2016 violated both the notice and minutes requirements of the Act. Here, the record reflected that the purported notice did not comply with the requirements of the Act, and it was undisputed that no minutes were kept or posted for the luncheon meeting at issue. Appellant, who did not attend the luncheon, failed to provide any evidence that Bill 12-0152 was discussed. Moreover, Ms. Kunst testified that she was at the October 24 luncheon and that “there was not any discussion of Transform Baltimore.”  Accordingly, the court held that the violations related to the luncheon did not rise to the level of a willful violation that would permit voiding the legislation.

Floyd v. Baltimore City Council, 2019 WL 2353541 (MD Spec. App. 6/4/2019)