Measure Seeks to Bring ‘the Light of Day’ to Government Meetings

When members of the Los Angeles City Council voted themselves a pay raise last year without discussion or public notice, the issue landed in Superior Court where a judge labeled the action “bizarre.”

The raise ultimately was overturned because it was larger than what the City Charter allows, but the hasty, unannounced council procedure, it turned out, had been entirely legal.

Angered by such “secret decisions” on the part of local government officials, two state lawmakers Wednesday introduced legislation that would strengthen open meeting laws by empowering courts for the first time to strike down local government attempts to dodge public scrutiny.

“What we’re interested in doing is bringing the light of day to the operations of government and have public hearings be precisely that,” said Assemblyman Ross Johnson of La Habra, a conservative Republican who is co-authoring the measure with Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly of Sacramento, a liberal Democrat.

At issue is the 32-year-old Brown Act, which was enacted to end the once relatively common practice of government bodies meeting in secret on sensitive political issues. The law requires that the public be notified of meetings and that government officials not make any decisions in private.

Measure Largely Unenforced

But the Brown Act has gone largely unenforced because it does not include any penalties for violation except where criminal intent can be proven. Connelly said it is “virtually impossible” to bring a criminal case by invoking the law and that “there is no recorded history of a successful prosecution.”

The legislative proposal would require local government bodies, both elected and appointed, to post written agendas 72 hours before any regular meeting. Items not listed on the agenda could not be taken up for action. Meetings concerning personnel decisions are already exempted under the Brown Act, and the authors of the new law are expected to exempt certain emergency actions as well. But all other decisions found by a court to have violated any provision of the law automatically would be struck down.

District attorneys, who often are called upon to enforce the Brown Act but find there is little they can do, are strongly backing the measure and have gathered examples of what they consider to be violations up and down the state, Connelly said. It also is backed by the League of Women Voters and Common Cause.

Opposition Expected

However, many local officials, fearful that their authority would be jeopardized, are expected to lobby heavily against any attempt to further restrict their activities.

Larry Naake, executive director of the County Supervisors Assn. of California, said his group has not reviewed the new proposal and “I don’t know if we will support it or oppose it.” But he said that while counties by and large agree with the open meeting law, “I think some of the Brown Act laws ought to apply to state officials as well. It’s easy to pass laws that regulate others.”

Last year the Legislature enacted a similar law that tightened up Brown Act requirements for state agencies, but it does not apply to the Legislature itself. The Assembly and Senate have their own open meeting rules, but many of them are routinely waived to speed action and often important decisions are made in private meetings.

Even as Johnson and Connelly unveiled their proposal, the Senate Local Government Committee in a hearing room down the hall in the Capitol building gave a practical demonstration of the problems their measure may encounter. The committee killed a bill that would have extended Brown Act requirements to private nonprofit groups that receive federal funds.

“History has indicated that we will have an arm-wrestling contest,” Connelly acknowledged.

In the Los Angeles case, council members voted 12 to 0 without discussion last July at an open meeting to grant themselves a 10% pay raise. A copy of the ordinance enacting the raise was not available to citizens before the vote and was publicly referred to only as “Item 53.”

The ordinance was ordered transmitted “forthwith” to Mayor Tom Bradley, who signed it the next day. The Superior Court overturned the raise because the City Charter allows no more than a 5% annual pay increase.