Tulare County supervisors likely to evade suit on alleged open meeting violations

A superior court judge indicated she would dismiss an open meeting lawsuit against the Tulare County Board of Supervisors from lack of solid evidence. The supervisors were alleged to have violated California’s Brown Act by meeting regularly for lunch, they claimed, to build team solidarity. -db

Visalia Times-Delta
August 21, 2010
By Valerie Gibbons

A Tulare County Superior Court judge will likely dismiss an open meetings lawsuit against the Tulare County Board of Supervisors next week.

Late Friday afternoon Judge Melinda Reed issued a tentative ruling in advance of a hearing scheduled Monday. In it, she upheld her ruling on July 1 that there wasn’t evidence to proceed with a trial, writing the lawsuit was based on “speculation and unreasonable inferences.”

Reed ruled there was no substantive proof that county business was discussed at the lunches.

“Thus petitioner fails to allege facts showing that any type of policy making discussions affecting the general public or having to do with the county’s governmental interest have taken place,” she wrote.

The two sides have been warring since February over whether Tulare County supervisors admitted violating state open-meeting laws when they certified that dozens of lunch meetings held in 2009 represented a business expense.

Southern California open-meetings watchdog Richard McKee filed a lawsuit in March alleging that the Board of Supervisors violated state open-meeting laws — known collectively as the Brown Act — when it met with a voting majority 46 times for meals in 2009. He filed the suit to end such lunch meetings.

The California Newspaper Publishers Association and the company that owns the Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register, Visalia Newspapers Inc., joined the suit in April.

McKee and the media groups contend the county’s characterization of the lunch meetings as “team building” and “building collegiality” represent an admission that the county violated the Brown Act.

In the response, County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange argued the lawsuit was filed frivolously.

“They have failed to allege any new material facts showing any conduct of the board that is in violation of the Brown Act,” Bales-Lange said.

The board has since suspended the practice of meeting for lunch when a voting majority is present.

The hearing will be held in Tulare County Superior Court Monday, August 23 at 8:30 a.m.

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