Strange Bedfellows

County and city officials will discuss plans for a controlled deer hunt inside the Loch Raven Reservoir property tonight at 7 p.m. Loch Raven High School.

But for some who attend, the meeting will be a repeat of a briefing given to them by the same officials last week.

About a dozen leaders of communities neighboring Loch Raven Reservoir attended a Aug. 21 briefing on an arrangement between the county and city to allow deer hunting in Loch Raven Reservoir.

The meeting, which was described as “public” by Don Mohler, a county spokesman, was not advertised and the media was not invited even though Patuxent Publishing Co., the publisher of this Web site, specifically requested to attend the meeting once it was scheduled.

“It wasn’t a problem for the press to come, but we didn’t want to advertise it to the public because we thought the leaders of those communities deserved their own briefing,” Mohler said.

“We don’t feel bad about it because we don’t care if a thousand people come on Thursday night,” he added.

All of the attendees of the meeting last week held in the Planning Board meeting room in Towson were invited because their neighborhoods border or are in close proximity to the reservoir and are directly affected by the deer population, Mohler said.

Enid Feinberg, one opponent of the deer hunt that is proposed for the reservoir area this fall, also attended the private briefing according to sign-in sheets provided by the county.

Mohler said the meeting was considered by officials to be a public meeting in the sense that attendees could have brought a limited number of guests and there was an expectation that the media would attend and report on the briefing.

Last month, David Carroll told me the county would hold two meetings. One was expected to be for a select group of community leaders.

“We want to have a nonyelling and nonscreaming meeting to get some facts out there,” Carroll said at the time.

At that time, I inquired about whether or not press would be allowed to attend and made it known that I would want to attend.

Carroll said he wasn’t sure if the meeting was considered open but said he would check and get back to me. That was the last that was said of the meeting.

Carroll, through Mohler, apologized for the oversight.

“Clearly we didn’t care if you or other members of the press attended,” Mohler said.

To be clear, the county did not violate the state’s Open Meetings Act, which requires notification of public meetings. The law requires that meetings of agencies and boards created and appointed by government be open to the public except under specific circumstances.

Since there was no formal board created to handle this issue, the law technically does not apply, according to Mohler, who quoted county attorneys.