Write a review of FAC to help us keep our Top Rated Nonprofit status!

Asked and Answered

Is It Legal to Exclude the Public From a Regularly Scheduled Public Meeting?

January 20, 2021

Question

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?

Answer

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 ordersN-25-20andN-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.

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP is general counsel for the First Amendment Coalition and responds to FAC hotline inquiries. In responding to these inquiries, we can give general information regarding open government and speech issues but cannot provide specific legal advice or representation. No attorney-client relationship has been formed by way of this response.

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.