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closed meetings

Los Angeles City Council flirts with open meeting violation in battle over ban on marijuana dispensaries

donal brown May 21, 2012

Tougher stance on pot shops won out during a Los Angeles City Council meeting that raised questions about  whether it was a open meeting violation for council members to huddle during a recess. Under California’s open meeting law, the Brown Act, council members must discuss public business in open sessions. -db From a commentary in the LA Weekly, May 17 2012, by Simone Wilson. Full story    

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California: Disturbing lack of transparency in firing Atwater superintendent

donal brown May 14, 2012

By a 3-2 vote the trustees of the Atwater Elementary School District fired the district superintendent, Melinda Hennes,  without explanation. Hennes had been on the job for seven years and recently received a favorable evaluation from the trustees. The trustees owe the public an explanation not only for the firing but also how the three reached the decision to fire Hennes without any official meeting time, argues the Merced Sun-Star in an editorial. -db From

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California: Judge denies legal fees to county supervisors on open meeting lawsuit

donal brown April 16, 2012

A Tulare County Superior Court judge ruled that the county supervisors could not retrieve legal fees from its successful defense of their regular closed lunch meetings. The Visalia Times-Delta and the California Newspaper Publishers Association had filed suit claiming the meetings violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, but lost in Superior Court. From the Visalia Times-Delta,  April 13, 2012. Full story    

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California: Tulare County wants legal fees in failed lunch meeting lawsuit

donal brown April 2, 2012

Tulare County is asking to be reimbursed for court costs in a case brought by the Time-Delta/Advance-Register and the California Newspaper Publishers Association. The newspaper interests lost the case in 2010, and the County is claiming that the suit was “clearly frivolous and lacking in merit.” The lawsuit claimed that the Tulare County Board of Supervisors violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, in holding closed door lunch meetings the supervisors claimed were

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California: School district action on superintendent done without public notice

donal brown March 19, 2012

The Blochman Union School District board put Superintendent Kristin Garrison-Lima on leave in February without voting or posting a meeting notice, a violation of the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law. After a closed meeting during which no action was taken, the board sent the superintendent a letter that notified her she was on paid leave, but there are no records of a meeting held to vote on sending the letter. -db From the

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