An activist group supporting the Purple Line won a legal victory Thursday when the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled the Town of Chevy Chase wrongly sought high fees for copies of public documents concerning the town’s fight against the light-rail line.
The court ruled Chevy Chase violated the First Amendment rights of Action Committee for Transit and member Ben Ross of Bethesda. The town charged the fees, the court ruled, because it expected ACT and Ross to criticize the community’s opposition to the Purple Line.
“Any time an agency says to you, ‘We’re not giving you this information because we don’t like you or we don’t like the things you say,’ this case says you lose,” said Elliot Feldman of the Baker Hostetler law firm, who represented ACT and Ross pro bono.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Douglas Tallman over at Bethesda Magazine