Title:
Title
Introduction to the Ralph M. Brown Act, Public Records Act, City of Sacramento Council Rules of Procedure, and Rosenberg’s Rules of Order
End
FileID
File ID: 2020-01401
Location
Location: Citywide
Recommendation:
Recommendation
Receive and file.
Contact: Jeffrey Massey, Senior Deputy City Attorney, (916) 808-5346, Office of the City Attorney
Body
Presenter: None
Attachments:
1-Description/Analysis
2-Clerks Office Brown Act Training PPT
3-Open & Public V - A Guide to the Ralph M. Brown Act
4-The People's Business - A Guide to the California Public Records Act
5-City of Sacramento Council Rules of Procedure
6-Rosenberg's Rules of Order
Description/Analysis
Issue Detail: The City of Sacramento Office of the City Clerk is committed to complying with the Ralph M. Brown Act (“Brown Act”) enacted by the State of California in 1953 for all City of Sacramento legislative bodies.
The Brown Act or “Open Meeting Law” is officially known as the Ralph M. Brown Act and is found in the California Government Code § 54950 et seq. 1. The Brown Act was enacted in 1953 to guarantee the public’s right to attend and participate in meetings of local legislative bodies, and as a response to growing concerns about local government officials’ practice of holding secret meetings that were not in compliance with advance public notice requirements. The Brown Act is pivotal in making public officials accountable for their actions and in allowing the public to participate in the decision-making process.
The Brown Act governs local agencies, legislative bodies of local government agencies created by state or federal law and any standing committee of a covered board or legislative body, and governing bodies of non-profit corporations formed by a public agency. Examples of these would be city council, county board of supervisors, special district, school boards, standing committees, and even some types of Home Owners Associations (if they were created by a public entity and constituted as some sort of public district.)
A meeting, as defined by the Brown Act, is “any congregation of a majority of the members of a legislative body at the same time and place to hear, discuss or deliberate upon any item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body” (§ 54952.2 (a)). For instance, when the quorum for a Board of Supervisors reaches the number necessary to be a majority (i.e. 5 out of 7), that is considered a meeting under the Brown Act. Also, when the same or a greater number of supervisors are attending a social gathering, for which no meeting notice was given, and they start discussing business under the jurisdiction of their legislative body, that would be considered a meeting that falls under Brown Act regulations.
The key elements for a meeting are quorum and discussion, hearing or deliberation of issues; the meeting needs not to be formally convened in order to be subject to the act. That means that “informal”, “study,” “discussion,” ”informational,” “fact-finding,” or “pre-council” gatherings of a quorum of the members of a board are within the scope of the Act as meetings.
The Brown Act explicitly prohibits the use of “direct communication, personal intermediaries, or technological devices that is employed by a majority of the members of the legislative body to develop a collective concurrence as to action to be taken on an item by the members of the legislative body” (§ 5495.2(b)). Serial meetings involve communication between members of a legislative body that are less than a quorum, but when all participants are considered, it constitutes a majority. “For example, a chain of communications involving contact from member A to member B who then communicates with member C would constitute a "serial meeting" … Similarly, when a person acts as the hub of a wheel (member A) and communicates individually with the various spokes (members B and C), a serial meeting has occurred. In addition, a serial meeting occurs when intermediaries for board members have a meeting to discuss issues.
For example, when a representative of member A meets with representatives of members B and C to discuss an agenda item, the members have conducted a serial meeting. In Stockton Newspapers, Inc. v. Redevelopment Agency (1985) 171 Cal.App.3d 95, the Court concluded that a series of telephone conversations conducted by the agency's attorney as an intermediary constituted a meeting within the scope of the Brown Act. (See also, 65 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 63 (1982); 63 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 820 (1980)).”3 Thus, the use of email to create consensus among the legislative members might be in violation of the Brown Act.
There are many resources related to the Brown Act on-line as well as the specific text of Government Code §§ 54950-54963.
<https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&division=2.&title=5.&part=1.&chapter=9.>