The Ralph M. Brown Act, Sections 54950, et seq., of the California Government Code was signed into law in 1953. The Brown Act was adopted to ensure that all business of the Government was open and that members of the public have a right to attend meetings. Since that time, the Act has been amended numerous times to broaden its Intent. In 2004, Proposition 59 a was approved by the voters, amending the California Constitution to give the public access to Government information.
“The people have the right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business, and, therefore, the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public scrutiny.”
Basically, the public has access to see not only the staff report and backup material, but any correspondence, emails, or other written material received by, or sent by the City or City Council, in reference to any item included on the agenda. This added another layer of transparency, which was good. Before the agenda process became electronic, if the public wanted access to any agenda reports and background information, they could obtain it by coming into city hall and reviewing the public’s copy of the agenda packet, or by requesting copies and paying for them. Any associated correspondence, for the most part, was not considered part of the staff report and usually wasn’t provided unless specifically requested.
After Proposition 59, whenever the City received information pertaining to an agenda item, copies would be made for the City Council and placed on the dais for their review. Additional copies would be made available for the public’s access.
Now that the agenda and staff reports are published on cities’ websites, it has opened the door for any member of the public to submit correspondence via email related to any item on the agenda, which then becomes information that has to be shared with all members of the public. In some cities the emails were received by city hall staff, other than the city clerk, and because the city clerk did not know this information was received, it was not always distributed to the public.
To solve that issue, some cities have created an email account for city clerks in which members of the public can send their comments regarding agenda Items. The last city I worked for received comments on agenda items, all the way up to the time the meeting was to begin, even though a Noon deadline was provided. Since the agenda packets were distributed electronically to the city council, all comments received prior to Noon, were added to the online agenda as a supplemental and additional copies were made for placement in the public’s copy of the agenda packet.
I found this to be somewhat confusing and labor Intensive because all the way up to the time of the meeting, items had to be added electronically to the website’s posted agenda and last Minute Copies were had to be made for the council members and the public. Because the City Manager’s office prepared the agenda and managed the process, often the city clerk was not made aware of supplementals and went into the meeting not knowing comments were received.
My suggestion would have been to have a link set up on the website for supplemental agenda material so that everything would be kept in one area and the public would have access to all supplemental material without having to scan through the agenda to see what was added. City council members would also be able to access all supplemental material by going to the link.
I would appreciate hearing how some of you process supplemental agenda material to meet the Brown Act requirements. Please feel free to share your experiences on the discussion board.
Carol