The District Attorney of Amador County is investigating allegations that the county supervisors cancelled a meeting then held the meeting anyway, thus violating California’s open meeting law. db Ledger Dispatch July 23, 2010 By Matthew Hedger The Amador County Board of Supervisors may have violated provisions of the Brown Act by holding a meeting after mistakenly announcing, both publicly and on the county’s own website,that it had been canceled. A timeline of events shows a public hearing to hear an appeal of a planning department decision by a local resident was scheduled for June 26. That hearing took place, and was continued to July 6. A mix-up in the supervisors’ office apparently resulted in a mis-communication about that meeting, although all of the supervisors, the person asking for the appeal to be overturned, Tom Hunt, and a neighbor who opposed the action, Barbara Cobarruviaz, all traveled to the project site on Fiddletown Road. But neither the press, nor the public, had an opportunity to attend the meeting, because it had previously been listed as canceled and had never been posted nor noticed. District Attorney Todd Riebe confirmed to the Ledger Dispatch that a complaint had been filed with his office. “We’ve received a complaint which we are investigating,” said Riebe, who could not confirm a complaint to the state attorney general’s office in Sacramento had also been made. Phone calls to that office were not immediately returned. “When an allegation involves the board, there’s some issues there,” Riebe said. “I’m going to take a look at it, and if she (the complainant) wants a second opinion, she can have at it.” Riebe said if action had been taken at the meeting, it would be an issue, but pointed out no action had been taken. “I’m looking at it. It’s under investigation. She’s going to be interviewed, and she can state what her objections are,” Riebe said. In the hours leading up to the 2 p.m. meeting on July 6, office staff discovered the error and called County Counsel Martha Shaver for advice. Shaver indicated it would be OK for the “field trip” to continue as long as no formal action was taken. “She told them they could go out and visit the site, they just couldn’t take any action. They would have to continue it to the next meeting,” explained Deputy Board Clerk Sheri Robinson. “They decided to not take any action that day and continue the matter to the following meeting, because it wasn’t properly noticed.” Staff re-agendized the hearing for July 13, where the appeal was granted, overturning the planning department decision on a 4-1 vote, with Board Chairman Brian Oneto casting the lone no vote. In an interview with the Ledger Dispatch, Oneto explained what happened. “At an earlier meeting on June 22, we’d looked at that Tom Hunt appeal, and (District 4 Supervisor) Louis Boitano said, ‘Why don’t we have a field trip out there and take a look at it,’” Oneto said. “So we set the date for the field trip for July 6, a special meeting to address it. The lady who I think is unhappy, the decision did not go in her favor. The decision was 4-1. I voted no, not to overturn it. “But we showed up out there and we said, ‘There’s been a posting problem, so we cannot make a decision on site,’ which was the original intent,” he added. Oneto said the board wanted to balance the needs of the opposing parties, and tried to do the right thing. “We came in the morning of July 6 and said, ‘oh my gosh, this thing wasn’t posted out front,’ the intent was to post it at the property also, not that you legally have to, but it wasn’t posted there
