open meetings

A Montebello councilwoman is alleging that the city council made open meeting errors in investigating the transfer of funds to off-the-books bank accounts. The councilwoman claims there were conflict of interest issues and that when the council put the city attorney in charge, there was no vote on the matter. -db From The Los Angeles Times, March 8, 2011, by Jessica Garrison. Full Story

The Ventura County District Attorny warned the Oxnard School District that they had acted improperly in deciding not to renew its business manager’s contract. The assistant DA sent a letter saying it was appropriate to take action in closed session on some personnel issues, but once the decision was made, it should notify the public of their action in the ensuing open session with details about how each trustee voted. -db From the Ventura County

A school district watchdog alleged that the San Juan Capistrano Unified School District violated California’s open meeting law in reversing pay cuts to all employees without public input. Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said the district trustees should redress the error by scheduling a hearing so the public can comment before taking a revote. While saying that he thought the trustees had not erred, the superintendent of schools said he would

A Solano county supervisor said her colleagues have resorted to back-room meetings to discuss future plans for the Solano County Fairgrounds. She complained that since there were no reports on the issue from the staff for the last six months that secret meetings must have been convened to instruct the staff.  A staff member said there were only two meetings on the issue, both in January and both were properly noticed to the public. -db