Cracking Open the Closed Doors : Bill would put teeth in California’s frequently ignored open meeting law

For almost 40 years, California’s open meeting law has prohibited officials of local communities from deliberating in secret. But as time and experience have demonstrated, the temptation for private deal-making has often proved to be far stronger than the law’s ability to control it.

Legislation authored by state Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco) would put teeth in the open meeting law, otherwise known as the Brown Act, by expanding its scope and eliminating loopholes that allowed public officials to elude prosecution year after year by, in effect, pleading ignorance.

Enacted in 1953, the Brown Act requires that “all meetings of the legislative body,” including city councils, county supervisors, school boards and planning commissions, “be open and public.” But public officials have been creative in finding ways to circumvent the law.

For example, officials have sometimes kept the public out of meetings by holding closed sessions, engaged in secret activities such as out-of-town “retreats” and acted to delay or restrict access to public documents.

Conviction under the Brown Act calls for a fine of $250 for a first offense, which is a misdemeanor under state law; a subsequent conviction may result in a fine of up to $ 1,000 plus jail time. But prosecutions have been nonexistent because officials had to knowingly violate the law. SB 1538 would eliminate that loophole by holding public officials accountable whether the violation was intentional or unintentional.

The bill would decrease the offense to an infraction and instead require violators to attend a one-day educational seminar on California’s open meeting law. Fines of $100 for a first offense and no more than $200 for additional violations would underwrite the cost of the seminars.

SB 1538 would better define public legislative functions, better inform people about public topics under discussion and limit the ability of officials to meet in closed session.

At the very least it would remind public servants that they are accountable to the people they are supposed to serve--the public.