Last summer under fire, the Tulare County Board of Supervisors discontinued “morale-building” luncheon meetings not open to the public. Now the Santa Rosa City Council has resumed a practice of meeting at private dinners that they claim are solely for generating congeniality.
But open government advocates are asking if it is advisable to hold the dinners privately so that members of the public cannot verify that council members discussed no city business in violation of the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law. -db
From the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, February 17, 2011, by Kevin McCallum.