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serial meetings

California: Grand jury finds Oak Valley Hospital District violated open meeting law

donal brown May 12, 2011

The Stanislaus County civil grand jury said the Oak Valley Hospital District had violated California’s open meetings law by failing to adhere to guidelines on agendas, the conduct of meetings, serial meetings and the release of confidential information and public information. The hospital district acknowledged the violations and said they were corrected before and during the grand jury’s investigation. -db From the Modesto Bee, May 10, 2011, by Rosalio Ahumada. Full story

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California: St. Helena council accused of holding illegal ‘serial meeting’

donal brown April 21, 2011

The California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) is claiming that the St. Helena City Council violated the Brown Act, California’s open meeting act, when a town administrator sent a memo to council members of instructions to its Housing Subcommittee. In a series of e-mails, council members suggested changes to the instructions and approved them. Jesse Duarte in the St. Helena Star quoted Jim Ewert of the CNPA, “This is exactly the kind of back-room discussion that

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A&A: “Briefings” on controversial project really serial meetings?

FAC August 18, 2010

Q: The planning commission was given six days to review a 117 page packet for a very controversial project for the gateway of our city, which has not been developed. The day before the commission hearing, the city manager held a series of “briefing” meetings with groups of the 2-3 planning commissioners at a time (our commission has 7 members). According to the schedule, more than a quorum of commissioners were scheduled for a meeting

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A&A: A Group of City Council Staffers Can Constitute a Serial Meeting, too

FAC July 12, 2010

Q: Our organization arranged a private meeting of some community stakeholders on a issue that will be coming before a city council committee, and we invited members of the staff of the three councilmen who make up that committee. However, we were told that only one staff member could attend, because any more would make it a violation of the Brown Act. Is it correct that meetings of elected officials’ staff members subject to the

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A&A: Engaged couple running for school board a conflict of interest?

FAC July 7, 2010

Q: I am a journalist preparing a story about two potential members of the local School Board. One is the recent city manager of the city who quit the post and the other is a current councilwoman who is not running for re-election this Nov. Both, though are running for the school board, and the two are engaged. This fact is the reason why the former city manager quit because of a conflict of interest

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