Q: We were prevented from entering the County Board of Supervisors Meeting in California where they were deciding whether to open up the county after the coronavirus shutdown. One man was detained for attempting to enter the building. Is it legal for the board of Supervisors to prevent the general public from attending a regularly scheduled board meeting?
A: As a general matter, the public must be permitted to attend any meeting governed by the Brown Act. Cal. Gov. Code § 54953(a). However, in March, Governor Newsom issued executive orders N-25-20 and N-29-20, which temporarily suspended any Brown Act requirements “expressly or impliedly requiring the physical presence of members, the clerk or other personnel of the body, or of the public as a condition of participation in or quorum for a public meeting” during the COVID-19 crisis, so long as the public is provided some means of observing and commenting upon the proceedings “telephonically or otherwise electronically.”
The Executive Order did not provide local legislative bodies themselves the authority to block entry to a building in which a meeting was taking place, but it seems likely that a local public health order required authorities to enforce social distancing guidelines, which might have entailed blocking physical access to the meeting.
Note that the Executive Order requires local legislative bodies to provide some means of electronically observing the proceedings, and also to “make reasonable efforts to adhere as closely as reasonably possible to the provisions of … the Brown Act,” so the Board is still required to provide some means of observing and commenting on its proceedings that does not require members of the public to be physically present.
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