Visalia Times-Delta
Editorial
March 11, 2010
meals together in private is that they haven’t put it in writing.
So they figure they will write it down, and everything will be legitimate.
We vehemently disagree. The continuing practice of supervisors dining together violates the Ralph M. Brown Act, the state’s open-meeting law. We have objected to these supervisor lunches for years. From time to time, supervisors have said they have ceased the practice. Records show they have not. Now they are attempting to rationalize their questionable behavior.
Supervisors can protest that they are not discussing public business. The fact is: Nobody but those at lunch would know. That’s the reason for an open-meeting law in the first place.
An examination of the receipts submitted by supervisors for reimbursement over the first seven
months of 2009 revealed that supervisors charged 228 meals in that period. That’s about three meals a week. On 30 of those occasions, the records indicated that at least three supervisors met
together. That’s a majority, and that’s illegal.
California law prohibits elected representatives from meeting as a quorum unless the meeting is open to the public in an accessible area, announced in advance and noticed with an agenda.
Supervisors and County Administrative Officer Jean Rousseau have defended the practice by saying that no county business was discussed and that meetings are part of a process of team building.
Supervisors on Tuesday directed county staff to put their practice of dining together into a written
policy.
Sorry: Whether the policy is written, oral or implied, it violates the Brown Act. Supervisors ought to know that. It appears, however, they intend to codify a practice that is illegal. That will not absolve them of their responsibility to conduct the public’s business in public.
We will never support such a blatant attempt to circumvent the law.
The crux of the matter is the assurance from the supervisors that what they are doing does not
violate the Brown Act. The county counsel’s office backs them up on this. Their contention is that, as long as they do not discuss county business, they are not violating open-meetings laws, no matter how many of them are present or when and where they meet.
Supervisors and Rousseau give us their word they never talk business at lunch. That’s preposterous on the face of it. The Brown Act prohibits elected officials from gathering in private because it allows them to conduct business in private. They can say that’s not what they’re doing, but how would anyone know? There is no record. We simply have to take their word for it.
The law does not operate on the honor system. Few things in life do.