Revenue Authority Releases Attorney's Memo

If you want to know how difficult it can be to get government documents released to the public, consider this:

The Baltimore County Revenue Authority had previously denied public access to a memo its lawyer had written to the authority’s five-member board explaining when documents become accessible to the public.

But then the authority released the memo to the public after Patch formally requested it under the state's Public Information Act.

And what did the memo say?

Certainly not what you'd expect given that William "Lynnie" Cook, the authority's chief executive, and Donald Hutchinson, the chairman of the authority's board, tried so hard to keep it private.

What it did say was that the authority had to release documents to the public unless it meets one of a number of either mandatory or discretionary exemptions in state law.

The memo, entitled "Application of the Maryland Public Information Act," was released late Friday in response to a public information act request filed by Patch.

Hutchinson had originally requested a review of the state's public information law on Jan. 13 after he was questioned by a reporter from The Baltimore Sun. As part of his request, Hutchinson had asked attorney Patrick Arey to determine the stage at which a document becomes public.

The two-page document does not appear to address Hutchinson's issues of timing. Instead, the memo focuses on summarizing the mandatory and discretionary exemptions contained in the state law. The memo makes no recommendations on how the state law should be applied to specific cases.

In an e-mail, Cook wrote he was in contact with Arey, who was in the hospital, and asked about releasing the memo.

"I indicated to him that I did not see anything in the body of his memo that would preclude our providing it to the general public; and, that it was my intention to release the document by Monday unless I heard from him otherwise," Cook wrote. "(Arey) was able to respond to my e-mail and, while stating certain reasonable reservations why it could be withheld, also agreed that it could be released."

The Arey memo was one of two pulled by Cook from by the five-member board on Thursday, March 10.

Cook, at the time, said the memo was being withheld because it was scheduled to be discussed in a closed session of the board Thursday. The memo ultimately was not discussed because Arey did not attend due to illness.

It was during the March 10 meeting that Patch filed the request for Arey's memo via e-mail.

Cook and Hutchinson said after the meeting that the item would be on the agenda for discussion at the March 31 meeting and repeated that the memo would not be disclosed because it was scheduled to be discussed in closed session.

Hutchinson said the memo was necessary to understand "when does this board have to disclose documents to the public."

"We're trying to be as transparent  as we can," Hutchinson said, adding that "just because an item is on the agenda marked as a closed session doesn't mean that the board can't take it up in public."

Neither Cook nor Hutchinson could say if the discussion would be held in closed session.