The Harford County Sheriff's Office made no secret that they were unhappy about County Executive Bob Cassilly pulling funding for a new training center and precinct when he came into office.
RELATED: Harford Sheriff, County Executive clash over new precinct funding
On Monday, the Sheriff's Office posted on social media that it attempted to dig further into why that happened, specifically requesting information about the architecture firm and its feasibility study on the project.
Under Maryland's Public Information Act, the Sheriff's Office requested specific documents, letters, and emails either mentioning the firm or to or from an email address from the firm.
News Alert:
— Harford Sheriff (@Harford_Sheriff) March 25, 2024
Cassilly Administration found to be in violation of Maryland Public Information Act
Full PIACB decision can be read here:https://t.co/j6d9BLb4GW pic.twitter.com/RljD73nhbw
In the social media post, the Sheriff's Office included a link to a document from the Public Information Act Compliance Board, in which the Board concludes that the County's refusal to search for the records violated the law.
The Public Information Act Compliance Board confirmed that this is its final decision on this matter.
In the background of the decision, the reason the County says it refused to search for the records was "it was 'unable to perform a search of its servers to access' the records he requested because 'Councilman Penman has accused the Executive Branch of illegal wiretapping by searching its servers for electronic records.'"
The County further added in its explanation, according to this decision, that it was waiting for a court to say it's not illegal for the County to search its servers.
We've reached out to County Executive Cassilly's Office for a statement, to which they replied:
We take seriously our responsibility to respond to requests for public information and do so routinely. Regarding the sheriff’s request, we provided all known records, but we declined to conduct a systemwide search of emails stored on our computers.
The county had always maintained that such a systemwide search was legal, however the sheriff claimed in an earlier situation that this broad search of our computer servers warranted criminal prosecution.
In that situation involving emails related to allegations by Councilman Aaron Penman, the sheriff sent two deputies to interrogate three county employees at their homes, with spouses and children present on a Sunday to gather evidence. The sheriff then turned the matter over to the Harford County state’s attorney, who referred it to the state prosecutor. At this time, we have not been notified that this issue has been resolved.
To avoid potential entrapment and criminal prosecution of county employees, we declined to do a systemwide search of emails pending a legal decision.
The Maryland Public Information Act Compliance Board cannot rule on the legality of this matter. Therefore, we plan to obtain a ruling in circuit court.
As with all major capital projects, if the county moved forward with a new law enforcement training center, contract awards would be based on an open bidding process.
