Sugarloaf Alliance, county file separate appeals following public records ruling

Nov. 3—Frederick County and the Sugarloaf Alliance have each filed appeals more than a month after a court ordered the county to pay the alliance attorney fees following a public records lawsuit.

The Sugarloaf Alliance filed its appeal on Oct. 19, asking to receive all of the attorney fees it requested from the county for legal services during a public record lawsuit the county lost. The group had asked for about $49,000 in attorney fees and was awarded $25,000 by a Frederick County Circuit Court judge.

Frederick County subsequently filed its own appeal on Oct. 27, arguing that the court erroneously ordered the release of public records without appropriately reviewing the documents to determine what could and couldn't be released.

The Sugarloaf Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of the Sugarloaf Mountain area, filed a lawsuit against the county in June 2022, alleging it failed to provide requested records within the 30-day period required by state law.

The group made two requests for records related to development of the Sugarloaf Treasured Landscape Management Plan, also known as the Sugarloaf Area plan. The requests were made in October 2021, and documents were not released until 10 months later.

The alliance's motion for reimbursement of attorney fees, filed on Aug. 10, said the county initially released only 20 records out of more than 150 that were identified as related to the requests.

In June 2023, Frederick County Circuit Court Judge Robert A. Greenberg ordered the county to provide previously unreleased records to the group.

The records revealed internal discussions county employees had about the Sugarloaf Area plan, as well as provided insight into efforts by Amazon Web Services to develop data centers in Frederick County and input on county zoning policy. The company abandoned the plans in 2021.

The alliance had filed a motion requesting about $49,000 in attorney fees from the county on Aug. 10. On Sept. 28, Greenberg ordered the county to pay $25,000 to the alliance in attorney fees.

Steve Black, the president of the Sugarloaf Alliance, said Friday that the Maryland Public Information Act states that the law should be used to allow a requester to access a public record "with the least cost and least delay."

Black argued that the court only awarding the alliance part of its requested attorney fees when it prevailed in the public record lawsuit "didn't seem like it was in keeping with the tenets of the MPIA to do this in the fastest, least expensive way possible."

"What I would hope would be that the appeals court would award us the full amount," he said. "When you prevail at that magnitude, you should have your expenses covered."

The county's appeal alleges the court made a legal error in ordering the release of undisclosed documents. Frederick County attorney Kevin Karpinski said the county believes the court should not have ordered the records' release without conducting an in camera review or requiring a more descriptive Vaughn index.

A Vaughn index, Karpinski said, is an index containing the names of people who produced the documents, the date the documents were made, who received the documents and what the contents of each record are.

During what is known as an "in-camera review," the judge will privately review records before determining if the records should be released based on certain legal privileges, such as attorney-client confidentiality.

The court can conduct an in camera review or look at the Vaughn index for a set of records to determine if the records don't have to be disclosed under certain legal privileges, Karpinski said.

Karpinski said the county was prepared to pay the alliance the attorney fees and hadn't planned on filing an appeal, but did so in response to the Sugarloaf Alliance's appeal.

"Sugarloaf obviously is unhappy or dissatisfied with what the judge ultimately decided would be fair and reasonable under the circumstances," he said. "Because we believe there's also an underlying legal error with regard to the judge's decision to require the release of the documents, we've noted a cross-appeal."

The county previously filed a motion for reconsideration in June on Greenberg's order to release the records, which he denied.

Black said he doesn't understand why the county is appealing the order when the records have already been released.

"They're not coming back, so the county is incurring substantial extra expense to appeal for what?" he said.

Karpinski couldn't immediately be reached in a follow-up request for comment on what the county hopes to achieve through its appeal.