Question
We invited city council candidates to our newspaper offices for an editorial endorsement forum. There are three incumbents and one challenger for three seats. We will have me, the editor, and a reporter there to ask the candidates questions about why we should endorse their candidacy. Because there are three candidates currently on the same five-member council, does that constitute a meeting that should be publicly noticed? We are planning on writing a story about the forum to appear soon after the forum and use it for a later editorial endorsement.
Answer
You pose an interesting question. Editorial endorsement forums are so common among newspapers you would think this question would have come up before, but I don’t think it has — probably because they usually involve less than a quorum of a legislative body.
In Government Code section 54952.2(c), the Brown Act Contains a limited number of exceptions in which a quorum may gather without qualifying as a “meeting” that must be publicly noticed. But none of the exemptions quite fit your forum. Here they are:
(1) Individual contacts or conversations between a member of the legislative body and another person;
(2) Attendance of a majority of the board at a conference or similar gathering “open to the public” that involves a discussion of issues of general interest to the public or to public agencies of the type faced by that body;
(3) Attendance of a majority of the members at an open and publicized meeting organized to address a topic of local community concern by someone other than the local agency (provided the members do not discuss among themselves, other than as a part of the program, specific business within their agency’s jurisdiction);
(4) Attendance of a majority of the members atan open and noticed meeting of another body (provided again the members do not discuss among themselves, other than as a part of the program, specific business within their agency’s jurisdiction);
(5) Attendance of a majority of the members at a purely social or ceremonial occasion (provided the members do not discuss among themselves at all specific business within their agency’s jurisdiction);
(6) Attendance of a majority of the members at an open and noticed meeting of a standing committee of that body (provided they are only their to observe).
To be certain the forum is in compliance with the Brown Act, then, it appears that under 2 or 3 it would be best to publicize the forum in advance and hold it in a place where members of the public could also attend — or hold two forums so you do not have attendance of a majority of the board at either one.
Asked & Answered posts should not be relied on as legal advice, and FAC makes no guarantees about their completeness or accuracy. All posts carry a date of publication that readers should take note of in assessing their usefulness, given that laws and interpretations of them may change over time. Posts predating Jan. 1, 2023, that discuss the California Public Records Act may contain statute numbers no longer in use. Please see this page for a table showing how the California Public Records Act has been renumbered.