An agenda passed out at a Scotts Valley schools planning meeting contained three items not on the original agenda posted 24 hours in advance as required by the Brown Act. The board president said that all items on the second agenda were suggested by subjects on the original agenda. -DB
Press Banner
March 27, 2009
By Chuck Anderson
The Scotts Valley Unified School District board strayed from its posted agenda for several items of discussion at a recent strategic planning meeting.
The move could be a violation of California’s public-meeting law, though the board’s president defended the trustees’ actions and said that the extra discussion items were covered by the official agenda.
Not included in the agenda for the day-long special meeting on March 6 were discussions about the district budget, the contents of a planned community survey and preparation of “key communication messages” about the strategic plan.
The original agenda, posted 24 hours in advance as required by law, listed four items:
• A report on the state of the district.
• Review and revision of the district mission, vision and beliefs.
• Review of progress on 2008-09 strategic plan goals.
• Development of 2009-10 strategic plan goals.
At the meeting, however, a more detailed document with a bold subhead of “meeting agenda” was distributed. It included a previously unannounced continental breakfast, a budget status report, a pre-distribution review of a community survey and a small-group discussion of “preparing the 2009-10 strategic plan key communication messages.”
The survey discussion took about 45 minutes and resulted in revisions before the survey began March 11, according to district parent Wendy Brannan, who attended.
Brannan said papers were handed out then taken back later, a second possible violation of the act, which requires that “writings” distributed to the governing body are public records and “shall be made available upon request without delay.”
There also was a final half-hour devoted in part to a discussion of “next steps.”
“This was precisely what the Brown Act was intended to prohibit,” said Jim Ewert, staff attorney and open-meetings authority for the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
The Ralph M. Brown Act, which outlines how public agencies must conduct meetings of their governing boards, requires that a special-meeting agenda list all items to be considered.
“No other business shall be considered at these meetings by the legislative body,” the act specifies.
Board president Sue Roth defended the conduct of the meeting, saying that the second agenda was mislabeled as an “agenda.” She said it was drawn up by Babs Kavanaugh, a California School Boards Association facilitator who conducted the meeting, only to guide participants.
“I feel the meeting was called for one purpose only, and that was for strategic planning,” Roth said. “Discussion of the survey could fit very nicely under ‘strategic planning,’ and all the subjects discussed would qualify.”
Roth pointed out that none of the five board members objected to any subject being discussed. Three current board members, including Roth, were present at a board Brown Act training conducted in January 2007.
Ewert, however, said the matter was fairly clear.
“This was a Brown Act violation,” he said. “They can’t change agendas in midstream, and the second one is a very different agenda.
“Someone who might have been interested in one of those items would not have known the board would discuss or possibly take action on them,” he continued. “Saying it’s all covered under ‘strategic planning’ doesn’t cut it under the Brown Act. It probably was inadvertent, but someone from the CSBA should have been sensitive to the board’s need to follow the Brown Act.”
Copyright 2009 The Press Banner