LONG BEACH : Judge Rules Council Violated Brown Act

A Superior Court judge has ruled that five members of the City Council violated the state’s open meeting law last summer when they each signed a letter opposing a homeless shelter without discussing it in public.

The law, also known as the Brown Act, forbids a majority of an elected governing body to meet or take action without first notifying the public. Five of the city’s nine council members--Evan Anderson Braude, Les Robbins, Doris Topsy-Elvord, Ray Grabinski and Jeffrey A. Kellogg--violated the law when they signed a letter to federal officials that was never discussed in an open meeting, Superior Court Judge Dion Morrow decided last week.

City Attorney John R. Calhoun said he disagrees with the court’s decision, but does not know if the city will appeal. He plans to discuss the ruling with council members within the next few weeks, he said.

The letter that sparked the case was sent to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. In it, council members expressed their opposition to a proposal to turn the Navy’s Cabrillo Housing development into transitional houses for the homeless.

The letter was prepared by one of Braude’s aides and circulated to other council members for support and signatures.

Soon after the July 27, 1993, letter was sent, a coalition of homeless people and advocates, the Homeless Organizing Committee, discovered its existence and complained that they should have had an opportunity to comment. In October a suit was filed by the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach on behalf of the homeless committee.

Judge Morrow decided in favor of the homeless committee, but has yet to render a judgment against the city. Dennis Rockway, an attorney with Legal Aid, said his organization will ask for an injunction directing the City Council never to violate the Brown Act. Rockway also will ask the city to pay all legal fees associated with the case. Those fees have not yet been tabulated, but will “probably be in the thousands of dollars,” Rockway said.

“This whole thing is absurd,” Calhoun said. “Take this to its logical conclusion and you’ll see that council members couldn’t even sign a birthday card without breaking the law.”

Rockway, however, lauded the court’s decision, saying the written opinion of five council members carries weight and should have been discussed in an open meeting.