Asked & Answered

Q: I’m a federal whistleblower who’s been shut out of a local board of supervisors public meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic and new laws disallowing public gatherings. Therefore I was denied the chance to go on the record to the public about county officials polluting millions of gallons of stormwater. How can I redress this wrong? A: As a general matter, the public must be permitted to attend any meeting governed by the Brown

Q: City council meeting attendees have been told they can’t hold up signs. The mayor told people not to talk or to take their conversations outside. If residents in the audience even whisper to one another, a police officer walks over and tells them to stop talking or leave. Recently a resident wrote to the city attorney that this violated the First Amendment rights.  The city attorney sent him a copy of the Municipal Code

Q: At a special meeting of a California legislative body, an employee was suddenly put on paid administrative leave. The closed session agenda item was added to a special meeting just over 24 hours before that meeting and stated: Public Employee Performance Evaluation/Discipline/dismissal/release (Government code section 54954.5 and 54947(b)) title: [employee title]. The employee was told verbally the day before that the item was added but he did not get written notice and was not

Q: We are requesting assistance in criminally prosecuting Community Service District (CSD) members and General Manager for multiple past and ongoing violations of the Brown Act. A: Unfortunately, we cannot provide individual representation through this hotline, nor can we provide specific legal advice. If you are looking for an attorney to represent you, a good place to look would be the County Bar Association’s lawyer referral service. We can, however, provide you with general legal

Q: This concerns a California Public Records Act request I recently made to a Police Department, and the response I got back improperly withholding some information from one of the responsive and disclosable Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) Call Reports. Recently, one of the neighbors was having a very loud late-night party and illegal gathering (vis-à-vis the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order). I called the police and reported the incident. Then, some days later, as the victim of