Did Ethics Commission Forget About Ethics?
In a not so surprising move, the Annapolis City Ethics Commission has failed to post adequate notice of their upcoming meeting (this afternoon at 4:30pm) to re-vamp the rules governing the commission and to discuss financial disclosures.
This meeting should be an open meeting, but the Commission failed to properly advertise it. Unless you looked at the bulletin board located behind the piano in the lobby of City Hall, you would have no idea it was happening. There is no notice on the website, no notice in the paper, there was no routine email blast like other meetings. Just a small piece of paper tacked to a bulletin board. (Note: since The Muckraker inquired, it has been placed on the City’s website. You can tell it is new based on the URL number. The meeting is not scheduled for City Hall but in the Office of Law’s conference room.)
Are they hiding something?
With the lack of notice, The Arundel Muckraker requested that the City record the meeting and post it on the web for viewing later. After all, the City has invested thousands of taxpayer dollars to develop a full nblown production studio with all the equipment to do this.
A City spokesperson responded to The Muckraker that the decision to record would be made by Stephen Kling, the City Attorney.
To clarify, the meeting notice given is legal under Maryland’s open meeting’s law, but it’s certainly not adequate. Heck, the commission could stick a Post-It note on Steve Kling’s door advertising the meeting and it would be legal, under the law.