Asked & Answered

Q: I have served a Brown Act Violation Cure or Correct/Cease and Desist Letter to a local city agency in California. I was wondering which would be the best next step if they do not comply. File a lawsuit? Contact the DA? I quoted an opinion from the CA Attorney General in the document which supports my position. I can’t afford to pay an attorney. Do you have any ideas? A: If the city agency

Q: Our city council meetings have recently moved to Zoom sessions due to COVID. I’m curious about possible Brown Act violations due to the way the council has been conducting the meetings. The hot topic has been the current proposed city budget which they’ve had for the past three months and finally released to the community three weeks before the supposed deadline. Now that they’ve been using Zoom for the meetings, the public comments that

Q: First Question: for Real Estate transactions going to my City Council in a closed session for “price and terms of payment for the purchase, sale, exchange, or lease” all have the same catch-all description “Conference with Real Property Negotiators:1. Property: APN 000-000-000 (the addresses vary)2. Agency Negotiators: xxx, yyy, zzz (the names vary)3. Under Negotiation: Price and terms of payments Is the generic expression “Conference with Real Property Negotiators” too general to be sufficient?

Q: I made a PRA request to the School District for gender breakdowns on student performance. After nine business days, I receive an email reply from a law firm seeking “clarification” on about fifty percent of the items. The clarifications requested are not necessary; they are stalling. And they do claim to have approximately half of the items but they did not provide such. The lawyer also claims that due to “reduced staff” they cannot provide me

Q: lacourt.org, the website for the LA County Superior Court, charges a fee of $4.75 to conduct a name search of criminal case on its website. It is a non-refundable fee charged even if no results are found. This doesn’t seem to be reasonably accessible as required under Cal. Gov. Code. 68150. Has this ever been challenged to your knowledge? I see California Court Rule 2.506 which allows this fee also requires them to justify