By Adam Pagnucco.
In Part Two, I quoted concerns about transparency, diversity and leadership decisions expressed by Council Members Kristin Mink, Will Jawando and Laurie-Anne Sayles in council session on Tuesday. Let’s evaluate what they had to say.
Of the remarks made from the dais, I find the ones made by Mink to be the most compelling. If she is concerned about transparency as a brand new member, wait until she finds out more about how the council works. I hope she has good blood pressure medication and knows how to practice low-sodium cooking!
The council certainly has opportunities to improve transparency. Here are a few.
First, the council probably holds too many closed sessions. Since 2004, the full council and its committees have held more than 300 of them. It’s important to note that while the Maryland Open Meetings Act allows closed sessions for certain subjects, it does not require them. The Open Meetings Act manual states:
For the most part, the decision to invoke an exception to close a meeting is discretionary. Although other laws, such as medical privacy laws, might require a public body to discuss a topic in a closed session, the Act itself does not mandate closed sessions; instead, it provides that the public body “may” meet in closed session to discuss an excepted topic. § 3-305(b).
The council should conduct a review of its closed session policies. Generally speaking, if they can hold a session in public without damaging the work of government, they should. A presumption in favor of open meetings instead of closed ones is both consistent with law and is good public policy.
One example of decreased transparency is the council’s current practice of using closed sessions to pick planning board members. In the old days, the council had open votes for planning board appointments that sometimes featured split votes and even runoffs. That kind of open voting should return.
Additionally, I have always despised the council’s practice of going behind closed doors to discuss business incentives. Some of these incentives range into the millions of dollars, and since they are the public’s money, discussion of them should take place in the open and not wait for subsequent budget procedures. Council Member Mink, please consider my humble (but eager) request to oppose these kinds of closed sessions.
All of that said, there are parts of the council’s business that go on behind closed doors that should continue. When I was a chief of staff, I spent a lot of time walking the floor. That meant visiting each office regularly to exchange information. I would tell them what our office was working on and they would do the same. If I had a bill, I would ask them if they had concerns about it. If they did, I would ask them how we could address those concerns. They would raise the same things with me about their bills. We would trade tidbits about the executive branch, budget items, constituent issues and lots of other things. We would count votes. If one of our bills was certain to fail, we usually declined to ask for a full vote at the council and instead allowed them to quietly expire for the good of the order. Our goals were to keep the lines of communication open, even when our council members were having spats, and try to fix problems before they turned into fights. We were not scheming in back rooms to prey upon the public. We were trying to give our ultimate bosses – the taxpayers – the properly functioning legislative body that they paid for and deserved. I understand that these kinds of things became more difficult when the pandemic limited in-person contact but I hope the council offices have now resumed these practices.
Now to Will Jawando. He is a very talented and ambitious politician, qualities in him that I enjoy. And let’s be honest – politicians wholly lacking in ambition are often useless. But Jawando takes this to a level that makes his (mostly also ambitious) colleagues occasionally uncomfortable.
Many of my sources were disturbed by his leaving town during the council’s budget sessions last spring to promote his book. Budget time is a very busy time at the council and accounts for some of its most important work. The meetings are unending because the council is jam-packed with people seeking money. Horse-trading for funding items is common and requires a personal touch. One source commented, “If the council had made him vice-president, would he even have been around?” There were other comments that were far more pointed than this one.
Folks also brought up staff turnover in Jawando’s office. Most council offices have 4-6 employees not counting interns and legislative fellows. The internet archive shows 15 staffers cycling through Jawando’s office between January 2019 and now not counting a legislative fellow in his first year. Every office has turnover but this is higher than the norm. When I was at the council, one member had a new chief of staff almost every year, arousing concerns in the rest of the building as to whether that office was functioning properly. In contrast, Friedson’s office is well regarded. It is headed by the mighty Cindy “Mama Bear” Gibson, a respected figure in the building who used to work for former two-time Council President Roger Berliner. The stability and competence provided by Mama Bear and her cubs was a big advantage for Friedson in winning his competition with Jawando for the council vice-presidency and the chair of the Planning and Housing Committee.
An observation about my sources. Normally, they will have different points of view about a particular subject. That’s especially common in a legislative institution and a big reason why I talk to a lot of people. In this case, they raised the same issues over and over again, regardless of their ideological beliefs or strategic positioning. The fact that so many different people said the exact same things fortified their credibility and caught my attention.
Now let’s note that Jawando gained a valuable prize: the chair of the Education and Culture Committee, which oversees MCPS and Montgomery College. This is one of the very best positions at the council. The committee does not handle a lot of bills, it does not have to deal with the messy land use matters that will plague Friedson’s Planning and Housing Committee and it covers one of the most popular issues with voters – education. All Jawando has to do is shovel as much money as he can into MCPS and the college, celebrate (and take credit for) their achievements, scoop up endorsements from the teachers union and SEIU Local 500 and dance happily into political nirvana. It’s also a great place through which he can advocate for his equity agenda. Many years ago, Council Member Mike Subin combined the chair of this committee with his dominating personality to become a force on the council. I think Jawando could ultimately be the real winner from the committee chair results as long as he embraces this new opportunity and adopts a strategy to use it.
One more thing. It is inaccurate to say that the committee chairs lack diversity. Of the seven council committee chairs, one is Black, two are Latino, one is LGBTQ and two are women (both freshmen). Only two are straight White males.
Finally, it was refreshing to see a real, live discussion at the council that may have irked some people but featured open, honest disagreement. The prior council was way too concerned with having unanimous yes votes in the interest of false displays of unity. Let’s have more frank discussions, even ones that lead to split votes, because that comprises REAL transparency that serves the people’s interest.