Calvert Commissioners Hit With Second Open Meetings Violation In One Week

PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — For the second time in one week, Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board has found that the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners violated the state’s Open Meetings Act.

In an opinion dated Monday, Aug. 17, the state board found that commissioners failed to provide sufficiently detailed information to the public before and after an Aug. 27, 2024, closed session involving agreements with a development company.

The finding comes just one week after an Aug. 10 opinion found additional Open Meetings Act violations involving several other Calvert County closed sessions in 2025 and 2026.

In the latest case, commissioners met in closed session Aug. 27, 2024, and ratified a confidentiality agreement and an exclusive rights negotiating agreement with a development company. The confidentiality agreement had been signed by the board president one week earlier, on Aug. 20, according to the opinion.

The compliance board determined that commissioners were legally permitted to discuss and ratify the agreements behind closed doors because they were connected to negotiations involving a business proposal and the potential purchase of county-owned land.

The violation instead centered on what the county told the public about that closed meeting.

Before the session, the county cited Maryland’s “business location” exception, which permits certain private discussions involving a business considering locating, expanding or remaining in the state. However, the county did not identify the actual topic to be discussed or explain why the discussion needed to occur in private.

The compliance board found that the omission violated the requirement for written closing statements.

After the closed meeting, the county’s disclosure described the topic as “exploratory study documents subject to nondisclosure.” The state board found that description was too vague for the public to determine how the discussion related to the exception used to close the meeting.

The board noted that Calvert County has since said it changed its procedures and now provides all required information before entering a closed session.

Data Center Vote Also Challenged

The complaint also questioned an April 7, 2026, commissioners meeting involving a proposed moratorium on data center projects.

During that meeting, a commissioner moved to direct staff to prepare an ordinance that would ban data centers in the county for at least two years. Another commissioner seconded the motion, but it ultimately failed.

The complainant argued that the possibility of a vote should have appeared on the meeting agenda.

The compliance board found no violation on that issue.

The county said commissioners did not know in advance that a vote would occur, and the state board said the record did not establish that the motion and vote were known when the agenda was prepared. Maryland law also allows public bodies to add matters that were not known when an agenda was published.

Second Finding In One Week

The Aug. 17 decision follows a separate Aug. 10 opinion involving Calvert County’s handling of other closed meetings.

In that case, the compliance board found that written closing statements for March 11, March 18 and Aug. 26, 2025, did not adequately describe the subjects being discussed or explain why commissioners needed to discuss them privately.

The state board also found problems with closed-session summaries from May 13, 2025, and April 28, 2026, saying they did not provide enough information about what commissioners discussed or why the meetings were closed.

That complaint also challenged the design of Calvert County’s website, but the compliance board found no violation on that issue.

Together, the two opinions, issued seven days apart, found that Calvert County failed to meet state disclosure requirements surrounding multiple closed sessions, while rejecting several other allegations raised in the complaints.

Read the Aug. 10, 2026, ruling here.

Read the Aug. 17, 2026, ruling here.

---