Governor to pick 2 board members | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

Mr. O'Malley now must appoint two of them to Anne Arundel's Board of Education. Thirteen applicants were in the running for the two open seats.

For the new District 32 seat, the commission chose candidates Teresa Milio Birge and Sam Georgiou. For the at-large seat, they chose Walter Chitwood, Kevin Jackson, Evelyn Gray-Mason and Tricia Johnson, the current board president who's up for re-appointment.

The decision caps the first year the commission has been in charge of selecting candidates for the school board. Until the legislature changed the process last year, local organizations caucused to nominate candidates, and the governor could either appoint one of them or anyone else he wanted.

Now, Mr. O'Malley is required to choose his new board members from among the commission's nominees. He must make his decision in time for the new board members to take office July 1.

Members of the new nominating commission are all appointed - five by the governor, one by the county executive and five by local organizations. They took public testimony on the school board candidates at a hearing last week.

Although the 11 commissioners voted in public Monday night, their discussion on the candidates took place behind closed doors.

Ted King, a policy analyst for the Department of Legislative Services who attended the meeting, said the state's open-meetings law allows the commission to discuss personnel matters in closed session.

Tim Mennuti, a commissioner who represents the local teachers' union, asked for the vote to also happen behind closed doors, but not enough commissioners agreed.

"I think this commission has tried to be as translucent as possible since we first met," said Matthew Tedesco, an attorney from Odenton and one of Mr. O'Malley's appointees to the commission. "I think we owe that to the candidates, and I think we owe that to the public as a whole."

Each of the six candidates had to garner at least eight commissioners' votes to be sent to the governor. Originally, the commission decided they just needed a simple majority, or six votes, but that was changed at a meeting a week ago by Yevola Peters, County Executive John R. Leopold's appointee to the commission.

Mrs. Johnson is at the end of her first five-year term on the board. A Davidsonville resident and former GOP official, she was appointed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. in 2003.

Mr. Chitwood, an Annapolis resident, has held several positions in the county's government, including chief administrative officer and director of budget and finance. Mr. Georgiou is from Severn and is a former chairman of the countywide Citizen Advisory Committee, a parent group that advises the school board.

Ms. Birge, an accountant, lives in Odenton and is on the Odenton Town Center Plan Oversight Committee. She went to Arundel High School and was president of the countywide student government.

Ms. Mason is a retired county teacher from Glen Burnie who is also a licensed minister at the First Christian Community Church. Mr. Jackson, an Edgewater resident, attended the Naval Academy and coordinates training and personnel for the Navy.

Several commissioners said Monday night they thought the first year of the new process worked out well.

"We know the commission process is a change from the way things used to be done in the county … And while the ship could have sunk, it certainly didn't," said Joshua Greene, the commission's chairman.