MHC Government Relations Committee Report, continued...
II. Opportunity to Observe TROA has not given the public an opportunity to observe its meetings.
Section 3-303(a) of the Open Meetings Act says that “whenever a public body meets in open session, the general public is entitled to attend.” Te Board has explained that the right to attend includes the right to “ob- serve the members’ conduct of public business during a public meeting.” 14 OMCB Opinions 29, 31-32 (2020). Part of providing a “place reasonably accessible” is holding the meet- ing in a room large enough to hold them. See 3 OMCB Opinions 118, 120 (2001). For electronic meetings, TROA “must provide the public with the opportunity to observe the meeting while it is in progress,” even if the body also invites the public to attend the meeting in person. § 3-307(b)(3). Tis can be accomplished by live streaming or by using a virtual meeting platform. TROA never told the interested public ahead of time where any of the
three meetings to date were to be held, nor is that information available to this day on TROA’s website. TROA did not provide the public an op- portunity to observe the August 3 meeting online at all. TROA tried to provide a virtual meeting platform for the August 23 meeting, but the video was angled so that the public could not see the members or the speakers, and the audio was not functioning at all for a substantial stretch of the time, despite the efforts of the on-line public to bring that fact to the attention of the organizer. Te name and identities of the speakers were not announced in a way that the on-line attendees could hear, if at all; and the documents presented to the authority were shown in only brief snatches and were summarized in only the vaguest of terms. In addition, the substantial volume of public comments made in the chat feature for the on-line meeting were neither read into the record nor preserved for the minutes, as far as we can tell. Te September 8 meeting was conducted on Google Meets but with the
lone exception of Ms. Nicole Earle, the board members did not turn their cameras on, even after being specifically asked to do so by a member of the public. Te public had no opportunity to observe the members’ conduct. We recommend that in the future, TROA use a virtual platform that: al-
lows online participants to see the in-person participants; allows presenters to share their documents on the screen; allows presenters to speak into a microphone, and that; preserves the public comments for the record. Such platforms have been used routinely and with great success by government agencies the world over since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also ask that TROA require its members and presenters to turn
their cameras on before the meeting convenes, and that it require public commenters to turn their cameras on while speaking.
III. Justification for Closed Session TROA has not complied with the legal requirements for going into
closed session. Te Open Meetings Act requires the presiding officer to “make a written statement of the reason for closing the meeting” includ- ing the statutory exception relied upon and the topics to be discussed. See § 3-305(d). Te statement must be made before the body votes to go into closed session. TROA’s meeting agendas did not contain the required written state- ments to justify going into closed session. TROA then voted to go into a closed session at each meeting without explaining in open session which of the 15 exceptions to the open meetings rules it was relying on, and on August 23 and September 8, without summarizing the topics to be dis- cussed. Moreover, TROA did not post an agenda online for any of these meetings, so the public had no notice that TROA intended to go into
closed session in the first place. In addition, the Open Meetings Act requires a recorded vote before
going into closed session, and requires the presiding officer to allow the public an opportunity to object to the closed session. None of the TROA meetings to date included a recorded vote in open session, and none of the meetings afforded the public an opportunity to object to the closed session. Indeed, at the August 3 meeting, TROA did not provide the public an opportunity to comment on any agenda items at all once the meeting began. Lastly, the Open Meetings Act requires TROA to disclose who at- tended the closed session, and it requires that the minutes describe the compliance checklist it followed in the event that no member properly trained on the Open Meetings Act was in attendance. § 3-213(d)(3) (ii). Te minutes of the August 3 closed session do not include either of these items. Te minutes of the August 23 and September 8 meetings are not available at the time of this writing, so we cannot confirm whether TROA complied with requirement or not. We recommend that in the future, TROA include the statutory justi-
fication and topics to be discussed for any closed session in the agenda that it circulates with the meeting notice, that TROA clearly state the justification again in open session before it votes on whether to go into closed session, that TROA ask the public whether there are any objec- tions to the closed session TROA votes, and that TROA include in the minutes all of the information about the closed session that are required by the Open Meetings Act.
* * * * *
. . . I hope you can appreciate that rightly or wrongly, the public trust in the state’s oversight of Toroughbred racing is low, possibly its lowest ever, and that some in the General Assembly are developing the view that supporting the contracting Toroughbred racing industry with increas- ingly large amounts of public money is no longer in the public interest. We hope that TROA can re-establish the public’s trust in the state’s
oversight of Toroughbred racing, and that TROA can prove that the state’s oversight can withstand the full sunlight of public scrutiny. Te Toroughbred racing sector comprises about 25% of the $2.1 billion horse industry in Maryland, and 4% of Maryland’s 101,100 horses. Te Mary- land horse industry would very much like Toroughbred racing to survive.
- Kimberly K. Egan President | Maryland Horse Council
We are pleased to be able to report that TROA responded to our letter within one business day and graciously apologized for the procedural growing pains it is experiencing. TROA said that “[a]s the Authority continues to solidify its processes, [it] welcomes the opportunity to speak with [MHC] to discuss engaging the industry and public.” TROA also said that it “takes compliance with the Open Meetings Act very seriously and will continue to strive to comply with it.” [1] Te Maryland Jockey Club, the Maryland Toroughbred Horse-
men’s Association, the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, and the Maryland Steeplechase Association, are life members of MHC. Te Re- tired Racehorse Project, the Toroughbred Retirement Foundation, the Fair Hill Training Center, Toroughbred Placement Resources, Inc., the Maryland Horse Foundation, and several individual breeders and train- ers, are also members of MHC.”
join.mdhorsecouncil.org 56 | OCTOBER 2023 | THE EQUIERY YOUR MARYLAND HORSE COUNCIL PUBLICATION 800-244-9580 |
www.equiery.com
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