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July 3, 2024
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Handbooks
California Brown Act Primer
The Ralph M. Brown Act, one of California’s main sunshine laws, is intended to provide public access to meetings of local government agencies.September 8, 2024
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Asked and Answered
City Council allowing presentation not on the agenda
At our last City Council meeting our mayor personally invited a federal government agent to speak during our public comment session, although this presentation was not on the agenda. Our mayor allowed him to speak over the allowed three minute time period and allowed City Council members to ask questions of this man, but […]August 24, 2011
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Asked and Answered
Public right to to speak denied at school board meetings
I need help defending the public's right to speak at open meetings. At school board meetings, board members will not let members of the public comment for the established time of three minutes. School district staff speaks for three minutes and then the public gets three minutes. Often times the chair does not allow the public the […]November 2, 2010
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Asked and Answered
New rules by city council restrict free speech
Several months ago the city council majority changed the public comments procedure to make it more difficult for all that wanted to make comments to do so. At a recent council meeting, they changed the ordinance regarding conduct during city council meetings, and more specifically the conduct while addressing the council. For example, if the mayor, in […]December 11, 2014
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Asked and Answered
New rule places unreasonable time restraints on public comments
[…] non-urgent discussions, closed-sessions, and believe it or not lengthy adjournments for the fallen, the speaker is forced to comment on an already approved item. This is not right. Reasonable limitations are easy to imagine, and I suppose if up to three minutes on agenda’d items plus two minutes on Public Comment were combined for […]March 5, 2012
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Asked and Answered
Can the City Council ban non-disruptive clapping by audience members?
I am requesting help re the "crime" of clapping at a City Council Meeting. I’m referring to clapping that is not substantially disruptive. The City Council has started to interpret a clause of the Policies and Procedures Manual (Section 4.4 Disruptive Conduct) to disallow clapping of any sort after a Public Forum speaker has […]April 14, 2015
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Latest News
Illegal immigrants have access rights too. The benefits of the Brown Act and Public Records Act do not depend on citizenship.
By Peter Scheer California's open government laws--the Brown Act and the Public Records Act, primarily--are often said to vindicate the "people's right to know" about their government. And indeed they do. But this formulation begs the question: which "people" exactly? At the country's founding, seemingly universalist references to "the people" actually meant a minority […]June 2, 2009
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Asked and Answered
School board changed public comments without notice
[…] trying--and often succeeding--in suppressing or censoring public comments. For more years than I can count, the board has provided a democratic, albeit cumbersome, method of accommodating the public's right to speak on items not on the agenda. Speakers were called in the order in which their "yellow cards" had been submitted to the clerk of the board. […]March 30, 2010
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Asked and Answered
Meeting minutes reveal personal ID information
[…] meeting. In the minutes of that meeting my comments were edited, and my private information (address) was published. I did not sign anything nor did I give anyone a verbal ok to use that information. As a retired peace officer I am concerned about my right to privacy being violated. What remedies may I take?August 6, 2011