LA PLATA — La Plata is asking Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board to explain how a town should describe a closed session when it isn’t sure what will come up, after the board found the Town Council’s paperwork for an Aug. 18 closed session broke state law.
The council formally acknowledged the board’s Oct. 15 opinion on Oct. 27, as the Open Meetings Act requires. Mayor Jeannine James read a summary of the findings at a 5 p.m. special meeting, and Town Manager Chuck Stevens walked through them again at the regular meeting that followed.
The ruling is the third time since June 2025 that the compliance board has found the La Plata council violated the act. Each time, the problem was how the council disclosed or documented its business, and the board’s opinions are advisory and carry no fines.
What the board found
The Aug. 18 special meeting included a brief closed session that came before the council’s censure of Mayor James. Three days later, the town learned of the first of what became three complaints to the board.
According to Stevens’ summary, the board sided with the council on two of the three allegations. It found the special meeting was properly called, since four council members requested it in writing and no quorum met outside a public meeting to arrange it. It also found the personnel matters exception allowed the council to meet behind closed doors.
The violations were in the documents around the session:
- The closing statement. Before closing a meeting, a public body must tell the public in writing what it expects to discuss. The council listed two topics: an official’s conduct while interacting with staff, and discipline of an official. Inside, members only asked staff about their interactions with the mayor, and discipline never came up. The board said the statement should have listed only what the council intended to discuss.
- The minutes. Public minutes must say where a closed session was held, who attended and what was discussed. The Aug. 18 minutes left out the location and attendees, and they listed discipline as a topic even though it wasn’t discussed.
The Chronicle reported the board’s opinion when it was released. Stevens stressed that none of the findings questioned whether the council was allowed to meet or the action it took in open session.
Three questions for the board
Through the town attorney, staff has asked the board to clarify:
- How it reconciled two parts of its analysis of the closing statement.
- How a closing statement should describe a topic a public body expects, in good faith, might come up.
- Whether the board can point to model language for standard closing statements and closed-session summaries.
The legal work is covered within the existing budget, Stevens said.
‘Written by lawyers, for lawyers’
Councilman Paul Guttenberg, who learned that staff wrote the summary the mayor read, said it did not capture the full context of the opinion because the board found no violation on several allegations. He said he did not want to minimize the procedural errors, but that statements from members of the public and from the dais had overstated their gravity.
Guttenberg said council members act in good faith while applying rules “written by lawyers, for lawyers, but to be executed by individuals like us.” He said the council listed discipline of someone under its jurisdiction, and people in the open session assumed who that meant, but several people in the room fell under the council’s authority. How to communicate that correctly is a question he said he does not have an answer to, and he hopes the exchange with the board will provide one.
Councilman Tyjon “TJ” Johnson said he respects the board’s advisory role and sees the opinion as another chance for the council to dot its I’s and cross its T’s. He said the location finding made sense, but he remains “very confused” by the other.
Johnson has been on the other side of these cases. The board’s June 2025 opinion, which found the previous council failed to properly disclose a September 2024 closed session that approved a stipend for the mayor, came from a complaint he filed as a candidate. Five months later, the board found the current council violated the act again when it held a Sept. 11, 2025, team-building retreat that included setting town priorities.
The same night, a fuller disclosure
The Oct. 27 meeting showed the details the board found missing in August. Disclosing an unrelated closed session held earlier that evening to interview candidates for town boards, the mayor named the room in Town Hall, the time it convened, the motion and vote to close, the legal authority, the topic and everyone present. She also directed the town clerk to attach her written statement to the minutes of both meetings.
The Aug. 18 dispute has rippled through town government since. In September, the council voted 4-1 to curb the mayor’s authority by creating an elected council chair to run meetings. No timeline for the board’s answer was given at the meeting. Councilman Gregory Sampson Jr. was absent Oct. 27.
