Question
If minutes are to be approved at a Committee meeting that is a Brown Act Committee, do the minutes need to be available to the public 72 hrs prior to the vote- or at the very least, the same time they are given to the committee members?
Answer
Under the Brown Act, any materials provided to the committee members “in connection with a matter subject to discussion or consideration at a public meeting” of the committee must be made available when distributed to all or a majority of all the members of the committee. Gov’t Code section 54957.5(a). Any other public record distributed during the meeting must be made available at the meeting, if prepared by the
committee or a member of the committee, or after the meeting if prepared by someone else. Id., subsection (b).
If the committee is going to “consider” and vote on approving the minutes, this seems to require that they be made available with the agenda packet at the same time it is given to the members of the committee.
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.