Uh-Oh, Certain Brown Act Protections Suspended

WATCHDOG ON THE CASE
Today, in the OC Watchdog column in the Orange County Register, the issue of the State suspending certain protections in the Ralph M. Brown Act in a budget-savings move is addressed.  You can read it HERE.

AGENDA POSTING COSTS
The issue is that, as part of the recent budget approval, the State has suspended the section of the Brown Act that requires the state to reimburse local jurisdictions for the cost to publish and post agendas for public meetings.  According to the article, the savings might be as high as $96 million.



COSTA MESA REIMBURSEMENT UNKNOWN
I contacted The City of Costa Mesa to see what kind of reimbursements we've been receiving lately.  No numbers are readily available, but I'm informed that we have been receiving reimbursements.  OK, I can wait until those numbers are available, but that's not why I'm writing this post.

THE MEAT OF THE ISSUE
At the end of this article the writer provides us with this little bit of information, which sent a shiver down my spine when I read it: (The red emphasis is mine)

"In the end, it’s fair to wonder why anyone would care about the Brown Act suspension. Most citizens in most places around California will probably see no difference in how their local governments handle agendas.

But the suspension is significant for the special power it takes away. Under normal circumstances, the Brown Act gives Californians the power to challenge the actions of their local government — if they don’t agendize them properly.

Say, for example, the agenda of your city council said officials were going to discuss a new program to clean your local parks and then, when that item came up in the meeting, they voted to raze all of the parks and replace them with parking lots. Under the Brown Act, you could take your city council to court to overturn that decision on the grounds that that it wasn’t properly agendized.

But you only have that power if the agenda-posting requirement of the Brown Act isn’t suspended. Since it is, you have no redress if that ever happens in your city."

OK, have you got that?  So, here's what it means in real life.

 THE COUNCIL'S END-RUN ATTEMPT
Back in April, after it was determined that Jim Righeimer's Charter would not appear on the June primary ballot because the deadline for submission of documents was missed, the council tried a stealth move -  an end run on the process.  I reported it HERE, HERE and HERE.  In a nutshell, the council wanted to hold a SPECIAL ELECTION for the charter, to be held coincident with the Primary, but would not be consolidated with the Primary because of the missed deadline.  This would have been VERY expensive for The City.

IMPROPER NOTICE...
However, as I noted when I wrote to The City about this issue - and subsequently posted it on my blog - the announcement of the special meeting that had been called to deliberate that issue was NOT PROPERLY NOTICED. The next day The City withdrew the item and canceled the special meeting.

 CHARTER SPECIAL ELECTION WOULD HAVE OCCURRED
If the Brown Act segment that's in question now had been suspended back then the council could have just charged ahead with an improperly noticed issue and we would have seen that expensive special election on June 5th.

WILL THEY CHANGE?
I have NO idea if the council will change the procedures for noticing of public meetings or not.  I hope not, but won't be surprised if they do.  They don't much like the fact that folks, based on published agendas, have a chance to research issues and prepare questions and responses to them.  This council certainly doesn't like criticism and this might give them a way to inhibit some of those critics.

A BELLWETHER
It will be very interesting to see what action, if any, this council takes on this issue.  If they DO begin to play fast and loose with agendas, that will give you a VERY good idea how they may act if Jim Righeimer's Charter passes as-is.

 CHARTER VOTE ON JULY 31ST
Speaking of which, the council will meet at 7:00 on Tuesday, July 31, 2012 to vote on whether or not to place Jim Righeimer's Charter on the ballot in November.  This will be absolutely the last chance for ANYONE to express an opinion on this issue before they take the vote.