Bell and the Brown Act

It's unlikely that anyone in the city of Bell wants to see the City Council reconsider its decision slash the exorbitant salaries of its four highest paid members by 90 percent. But someone probably could.

That's because the Bell City Council almost certainly violated the state's open-meetings law at least twice - and probably three times - in the course of Monday's raucous meeting (hear more about the meeting here).

First, the council headed into closed session to discuss several potential lawsuits stemming from the salary scandal without first allowing the public to speak. Then, the council voted to make the salary cuts without first letting the public speak. Finally, agenda item that was supposed to alert the public that council salaries might be slashed made no mention that a vote would be taken.

 All of these are potential violations of the state's open-meetings law, known as the Brown Act, which requires, among other things, that the public be allowed to speak before any final decision is made. Bell's own agenda spells this out (the .pdf version is here): "Pursuant to the Ralph M. Brown Act, public comments may be received on these items prior to the time action is taken by the City Council."

Even a court agreed the violations occurred, the punishment would hardly fit the crime: A judge would probably be forced to rescind the vote and restore the salaries until the council acted in the right way.

But even technical violations of the law should be pointed out to ensure the public learns it's rights. Also, it was clear the hundreds of people who attended Monday's meeting wanted the council members to hear their displeasure before any action was taken. Indeed, most speakers wanted the council members to resign.

Is anyone going to sue to force the council to redo the vote? Doubtful. But this does serve as evidence that the council, whatever it is paid, still doesn't understand it's role as a representative government.

Bray vs. LA Impact

The Metropolitan News-Enterprise is the first newspaper to talk to Chris Bray about his frustrations with the countywide narcotics task force LA Impact over its foot-dragging in complying with his public records requests. Bray - his latest missive to LA Impact attorney Christy O'Donnell is here - plans to file a complaint with the DA's public integrity division and threatened another lawsuit.

From the MNE story:

A former newspaper reporter who successfully sued to have a task force organized by Los Angeles County police chiefs to coordinate the battle against drug trafficking to open at least some of its meetings to the public over four years ago said yesterday he will ask District Attorney Steve Cooley’s Public Integrity Division to investigate the agency for further violations of the Ralph M. Brown Act.

Chris Bray, who once covered the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force for the Claremont Courier, also said he may file another lawsuit against the agency.

Bray and open-government activist Richard McKee of Californians Aware sued the agency, popularly known as LA IMPACT, for violating the Brown Act in 2004.

This district’s Court of Appeal ruled that the task force was subject to the act’s requirement that meetings be “open and public,” but Bray told the MetNews the organization is “playing a ridiculous game” to thwart his ability to obtain minutes and agendas from LA Impact Board of Directors meetings.

The thin blue line of transparency

Way back when I wrote for newspapers, I reported on a narcotics task force formed by a group of L.A. County police chiefs called LA Impact. The police chiefs met in private to set policy for and distribute funds from task force investigations. Government watchdogs Richard McKee and Chris Bray said the police chiefs - who had expressed an interest in branching out from narcotics to domestic terrorism - had to meet in public. McKee and Bray took the cops to court and the court said the cops were breaking the law.

Flip the calendar forward a few years and Bray, who now teaches history at UCLA, got an itch to see if the police chiefs were still following the law. He sent the LA Impact governing board a letter requesting minutes from past meetings and notification of future meetings (which appear to be being held at the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District building in Santa Fe Springs). Such requests are routinely made of California's city councils and school boards and most comply. LA Impact's lawyers did their best to do the bare minimum.

Bray responds:

Thanks for your prompt reply to my request. I had hoped that LA Impact minutes and agendas were created and stored as Word files, or something similar, and could be emailed as attachments with very little cost or hassle to your client. But I would be happy to spend time in the LA Impact office instead, even if it is a substantial time commitment for us all. If I'll be required to travel to the office to read minutes every time there's a meeting of the Board of Directors, perhaps we can come up with a regular appointment time for those frequent visits. In the meantime, I'd like to schedule any morning next week after nine a.m. to review the requested minutes. I plan to read them carefully and methodically, so I may need to visit the LA Impact office quite a few times in the coming days.

Read all the letters the here.