State legislators are increasingly perturbed with Governor Gavin Newsom over the lack of transparency on virus spending. Assembly members want to be included in decisions about the spending and asked Newsom for more information about allocating the estimated $7 billion for the emergency. (San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2020, by Dustin Gardiner)
The San Luis Obispo County DA flagged the San Simeon Community Services District for failing to properly notify citizens of a public meeting. They provided the wrong login information for Zoom so a March 20 meeting was not open and public. (San Luis Obispo Tribune, April 21, 2020, by Matt Fountain)
Citizens notified the City Council that they were excluded from the March 19 council meeting since the council did not make it open telephonically or by other technology. The city attorney said two members of the public participated in the meeting and that at the time they did not know if teleconferencing would be needed. (Santa Clarita Valley The Signal, April 17, 2020, by Tammy Murga)
The San Jose City Council wants to reinstate some open government rules put on hold in deference to the pandemic. It changed the 10 day notice for agendas to 72 hours but found that unworkable since the rules and Open Government Committee had to vet items for the agenda. (San Jose Inside, April 17, 2020, by Grace Hase)
Humboldt State University held public meetings using Zoom to discuss enrollment drops and budget cuts but given the danger of Zoom bombings required signups for the public webinars. That gave cause for protests that the university was violating the Brown Act. The university countered that it was not subject to the Brown Act. (The Lumberjack, April 16, 2020, by Grace Caswell)
The city of McFarland plans to proceed with hearings on approving ICE detention centers even though some residents are saying many of their fellow citizens don’t have the resources to access the meeting digitally. (Bakersfield.com, April 14, 2020, by Sam Morgen)
The Los Angeles County supervisors are making their meetings open via teleconferencing but only allowing public comment by e-mail and mailed remarks. Their critics want the board to allow real-time public comment by telephone or the internet. (The Eastsider, April 14, 2020, by City News Service)
A Chico attorney is challenging action by the Chico City Council who he says violated the Brown Act by acting on an item not on the agenda. The action was to discourage breaking up encampments of 10 or fewer individuals while under the coronavirus emergency. (Chico Enterprise-Record, April 9, 2020, by Natalie Hanson)
The threat of hacking became real April 1 as the Ocean Beach Planning Groups virtual meeting was zoom bombed. Swastikas and porn appeared on screen and each person in attendance was harassed by name. The planning group is meeting with the city attorney to see how they can change procedures and still comply with the Brown Act, the states open meeting law. (San Diego News, April 3, 2020, by Dave Schwab)
The Paso Robles City Council has begun to live-stream its meeting which are available on YouTube. Citizens can make comments by telephone or by written comments submitted by e-mail. (Paso Robles Daily News, March 26, 2020, by News Staff)
A state appellate court ruled for Lafayette rejecting an appeal for a rehearing of a lawsuit brought by citizens over alleged violations of the Brown Act in making a land-use decision. (East Bay Times, March 25, 2020, by Jon Kawamoto)