“Trust but verify.”
President Ronald Reagan advocated this management principle. Whether it relates to foreign governments or economists or our government, it did and does hold water.
Unfortunately, the citizens of Baltimore have been asked to trust the Baltimore Development Corp. for way too long without having any means to verify if it works for the common good. The corporation stands exempt from state open meeting and open record laws, but is financed almost exclusively by we the people ? all but about $450,000 of its more than $14 million in revenue in 2005 came from our taxes.
Tuesday, the state?s highest court heard arguments about whether the city?s economic development group may remain exempt from state open meeting and record laws.
It must not. The judges must act in our interest. We?re the ones paying the bill.
The BDC aims to recruit, expand and retain businesses and jobs in the city. It?s work includes linking businesses with taxpayer-financed grants, loans granted at below-market rates, infrastructure improvements and training for workers. It decides who can develop certain properties and sets guidelines for how properties must be developed. It also supports using eminent domain ? the government?s right to seize private property ? for economic development purposes. It?s privy to the biggest real estate deals in the city.
It operates as a nonprofit, but no one can earn a seat on the board without the mayor?s recommendation.
So its current arrangement, and that?s a polite term, allows the government to hide operations that would come under scrutiny if conducted by city departments.
It argues that it is not a public body and should not be subject to public laws. But that makes no, repeat, no sense. City lawyers represent BDC.
And the group says that privacy is essential to reaching deals. But the Maryland Economic Development Association is subject to open record laws and has not suffered as a result, said George Liebmann, counsel for the group for 20 years. Besides, if the group finds secrecy so essential, why doesn?t it privatize itself? With no public funds it would not have an obligation to disclose its activities.
The city agency does not deserve special treatment. As Liebmann asks, “The O?Malley administration has thus rendered itself complicit in concealing the use made of public funds. Is this approach to be carried to the state level if O?Malley is elected?”
If the most secretive organization in the country ? Congress ? can pass legislation allowing the public to search for how it deals out special interest money ? the BDC can open its doors to scrutiny.
Regardless of the outcome of the case in the Maryland Court of Appeals, the BDC must give the public access to its work. What is it afraid of?
