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parents, Mrs. Millard, Mrs. Stephens, Mrs.
Elliott and Mrs. Vaughan.
(Applause.)
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : I will
have the Clerk read the amendment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 24,
to accompany Minority Report No.
R&P-1(c) to Committee Recommendation
N. R&P-1, by Delegates Beachley, Bothe,
Burgess, Child, Dabrowski, Groh, Hard-
wicke, Kosakowski, Mitchell, E. C. Murray,
Price, Taylor, Weidemeyer, Willoner:
On page 4 following section 14 added by
Amendment No. 21 add the following new
section :
"Section —— , Freedom of Information.
All governmental proceedings, meetings,
and records shall be open to the people and
prior notice of such proceedings or meet-
ings shall be provided, except as otherwise
prescribed by public general law."
DELEGATE WILLONER: I yield three
minutes to Delegate Maurer.
DELEGATE MAURER: Mr. Chairman,
I rise to support the amendment to manage
the growth of government services and to
provide a more energetic and robust state
government. We have strengthened the ex-
ecutive, made the legislative more visible,
given more power to local governments,
and provided for intergovernmental bodies.
I have wondered what we should do to
strengthen the hands of citizens who will
have to have meaningful information on
which to base their judgments about opera-
tions of state and local governments, and
the actions of the officials who represent
them.
My answer is that the right to know is
a necessary and valuable safeguard which
we should add to our constitution with the
opportunity for the legislature to take a
comprehensive view of the entire field of
government and to make such determina-
tion of the areas which are to be protected
as they deem wise.
New York's recent constitutional conven-
tion pioneered a section on access to gov-
ernment records, and that section was
hailed as one of the important achieve-
ments of that convention.
It stemmed in part from a controversy
concerning the New York Port Authority
which refused to make public some of its
records. The problem basically, as it ap-
peared to me, was that it was the desire
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of the Authority not to disclose its funding
policy, and I think that we are not without
this kind of a problem in Maryland. I
think it is the kind of a problem which
may grow.
I would like to call to your attention a
problem with the Washington Suburban
Sanitary Commission. In a series of articles
which appeared in the fall of 1966, Dr.
Francis Tanney concluded that the Wash-
ington Suburban Sanitary Commission
through its water pricing policies fostered
consumer ignorance and greatly encouraged
inefficiency.
How can the citizens know what water
costs are when there are seven different
charges for water, some direct, some indi-
rect, some on tax bills, some paid to the
county, and some on bills paid to the
commission?
Indeed, the question, now and in our
county minutes of 10-24-67, was summar-
ized as a staff report to the council which
recommended that the WSSC five-year pro-
gram legislation should be amended to make
it clear in the legislature that the WSSC's
overall method of funding its various capi-
tal projects should be outlined in the pro-
gram, including the general statement as
to the use of ad valorum versus front-foot
benefit versus user charges benefit, and so
forth as an indication of the program's
impact on these various financing programs.
The right to know goes beyond this. It
goes to all aspects of government. I think
it is important that we add it to the
constitution.
(President H. Vernon Eney resumed the
Chair) .
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Kiefer.
DELEGATE KIEFER: I yield three
minutes to Delegate Winslow.
DELEGATE WINSLOW: Mr. Chair-
man, I rise in opposition to this amend-
ment as a part of the constitution. I am
extremely reluctant to oppose the idea that
we should have admission to our public
proceedings and our public records. How-
ever, I suggest that the amendment as
drawn is an extremely uncertain thing
which has become very clear in the ques-
tion and answer period.
The amendment as drawn suggests that
all governmental proceedings, meetings and
records shall be open except as otherwise
prescribed by public general law. This ex-
ception gives me a great deal of trouble
for at least fifty-seven various reasons in
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