Baltimore County Council Moves Work Session Times

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — The Baltimore County Council will hold its work sessions at 4 p.m. or later starting this summer after the council voted Tuesday night to change its rules of procedure.

The council meets the first and third Mondays of the month to vote on legislation. Each Tuesday before these legislative sessions, members discuss the agenda during a work session.

Typically, the work sessions have been held at 2 p.m.

Council members Wade Kach, David Marks and Izzy Patoka sponsored a resolution to move the work session time.

"We have to allow folks that are working an opportunity to participate," Patoka said.

"By making the work session later, you are giving more opportunity to people with jobs," Kach said, noting this would also enable more people to be candidates for council who otherwise could not make a daytime meeting. He added that he wished the 6 p.m. start time had been maintained.

When the resolution was proposed in January, it called for work sessions to start at 6 p.m. or later, effective immediately.

The council voted Feb. 3 to make two changes:

• Work sessions will be held at 4 p.m.
• The new start time for work sessions will take effect July 1.

The council approved the resolution as amended Tuesday in a 5-2 vote.

Opposition came from Councilman Todd K. Crandell and Councilman Julian Jones.

"People that work in the evening should have a chance to voice their opinion," Jones said at the council meeting Tuesday night. He said he received "overwhelming opposition to the bill" via email from his constituents.

"I think there are agendas at work here that have nothing to do with transparency," Crandell added. "What in the world are we fixing?"

More people show up for work sessions than council meetings, according to Council Chair Cathy Bevins, who said she did not believe the change was needed.

"It's going to pass anyway," she said, as to why she was going to vote in favor of it. "I will be voting for this tonight, but I'm really reluctant to be voting for it," Bevins said. "I don't think moving it two hours is going to bring more folks in."

Bevins, who lives in Middle River, said it took her an hour and a half to get to her house from the meeting in Towson in rush-hour traffic.

Once the resolution passed, she said she would be counting heads in the meetings to see if it made any difference.

An issue she said she thinks does need to be addressed is parking, which citizens said was a deterrent to coming to testify since they had to pay to park.

Said Bevins of shifting the work session time: "In six months, we're going to look back on this and say it was a mistake."