A&A: Question and Answer Session with Consultants

Question and Answer Session with Consultants

Q: I was at a recent city council meeting where the engineering consultants put on a presentation to justify doubling the rates we pay for our water. Then there was a question and answer period where the public was invited to address their questions to the consultants.

There were many questions about the components of planned upgrades to the infrastructure: whether or not they were “growth facilitating” and whether or not the local water table would support the number of wells the consultants proposed be dug.

After one such question, the mayor broke in and said to the consultant “you don’t have to answer that question. You don’t really need to answer that.”

Did the mayor exceed his authority in telling the consultant he did not have to answer the question during the Question and Answer session?

A: The Brown Act is California’s open meetings law, and governs meetings local agencies. See Govt Code 54950 et seq.  Nothing in the Brown Act requires the local agency to allow the public the opportunity for question and answer sessions, so in making the consultants available the City Council appears to have gone above and beyond what is required of them.

The Brown Act does provide that “every agenda for regular meetings shall provide an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the legislative body on any item of interest to the public.”  However, this public comment provision only provides members of the public the opportunity to address the agency, and does not require members of the agency, or anyone else, to answer questions of members of the public.

However, to the extent you’re unable to get your questions answered, you might consider making a Public Records Act (“PRA”) request for records relating to the issue.  Under the California PRA, Cal. Gov’t Code sections 6250 et seq., any member of the public has a right to inspect documents owned, used or retained by a state or local agency unless one of the PRA’s exemptions to disclosure applies.

A request under the PRA can be either oral or in writing, and does not need to include any magic words to be effective.  However, there are certain benefits to putting your request in writing.  Among other things, to the extent the agency denies your request, they must notify you of that denial in writing.  (Gov’t Code section 6255).  Your request does not need to be sent in any particular matter, nor do you need to request a return receipt.  However, as you probably know the PRA gives an agency 10 days to respond to a request, and so it can be helpful to have some proof of when the request is received by the agency.  A date stamp would be one way to accomplish this goal.

A sample PRA request letter can be found on CFAC’s web site at the following link: http://www.cfac.org/templates/cpraletter.html