Distribution of Board Materials to the General Public

The bi-monthly meetings of the Board of Directors for the Baltimore County Revenue Authority (the “Authority”) are open to the general public beginning in February of each calendar year. In an effort to provide the general public and media outlets with advance notification as to the topics under consideration during the meetings, the Authority posts the dates and times of all meetings in the Baltimore Sun in advance of each scheduled meeting (with a notation that more information can be found on the Authority’s website.) The website is updated on a regular basis.

The following is the generally followed process by which the Proposed Agenda and Open Session materials are made available to the general public and media.  Please note that the actual Agenda is subject to change at any time and the topics on the Agenda may be postponed for a future meeting.

  1. The Proposed Agenda, along with all of the documents associated with an Open Session, are made available to the general public and Board of Directors on the same day. Under normal circumstances, the packets are available on the Friday preceding a scheduled Thursday meeting.
    1. Copies of all Open Session documents are available at the main office during normal business
  2. Should the Proposed Agenda from the staff include a recommended Closed Session, the determination of whether or not the Board will proceed with the staff’s recommendation for a Closed Session will require the following steps:
    1. Given the timing of the distribution of meeting materials, the Board may have the opportunity to review Closed Session materials prior to the meeting and may offer various suggestions, comments, concerns and/or reservations to either the Chairman or Chief Executive.
    2. Under normal circumstances, the Chairman and Chief Executive meet several days prior to the scheduled meeting to review, in detail, the documents to be discussed at the Board meeting.
    3. The Chief Executive will inform the Chairman of the comments he/she has received from the other Board members in connection with the proposed Closed Session. Should the Chairman determine that it would be appropriate that some, or all, of the documents be part of the Open Session, those documents shall be made available to the public and the Proposed Agenda posted on the website will be modified with a notation indicating the modification.
    4. Should additional Closed Session documents and/or topics remain on the day of the scheduled meeting, it will be the responsibility of the staff and the Authority’s legal counsel to justify their recommendation to go into a Closed Session. The Board will then vote on the Closed Session recommendation.
    5. Should the Board vote to remain in Open Session, the documents intended for Closed Session may, in part or in total, be made available to the general public and media at the conclusion of the meeting (after consultation with the Authority’s legal counsel).
      1. Example: It would be permissible to move a discussion of a promotion of an employee to Open Session; however, if such a discussion included a document that contained non-disclosable personnel information, that document could not be made available to the public.
  3. Should a meeting be cancelled and/or postponed, the staff will make every effort to contact those individuals or members of the media who have expressed an interest in attending the meeting. The staff will post the new time and date on the website as soon as it is available.