Closed-Meeting Critics Target County Counsel

Under fire for holding secret meetings and making decisions out of public view, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors was urged Tuesday to drop their county counsel from further deliberations on the topic, as that lawyer also is accused of violating state open-meetings laws.

The suggestion came from 1st Amendment advocates who appeared at the supervisors’ weekly meeting. It was the latest escalation in a growing debate over the board’s handling of matters behind closed doors.

“I think it would be important for the board to get an independent legal opinion,” said Richard McKee, president of the California First Amendment Coalition. County Counsel Lloyd Pellman “has some standing opinions and some involvement in past practice that might make it difficult for that office to be open to new ideas,” McKee said.

In a private meeting Dec. 18, Pellman suggested that the board might be able to kill a proposed initiative to raise the salaries of low-paid home health-care aides if Pellman simply ignored his responsibility to give the measure a title and summary. Without those, proponents would not be allowed to begin gathering ballot signatures.

Pellman changed course the following day, phoning a majority of the board members to gauge their reaction. That step, according to Supervisor Gloria Molina and others, compounded his original error by violating open-meetings laws.

Details of those meetings became public this month when the county denied a public-records request by The Times for details of those meetings, but then inadvertently included the same records requested.

Supervisors said they will discuss McKee’s suggestion next week during a hearing to air critics’ allegations that the county refuses to adhere to open-meetings and public-records laws.

The supervisors did not immediately act on the suggestion that they find another lawyer to advise them on issues related to public records and open meetings.

The board has been criticized in recent weeks, after revelations of its secret 4-1 vote to kill the health-worker initiative. Critics have seized the opportunity to complain about long-standing county practices that they say violate the law.

Supervisors meet individually with their chief administrator Monday before the Tuesday meetings, and supervisors’ staff members meet with each other and department heads to debate upcoming matters before the board.

A review by The Times of a year’s worth of board meetings found that supervisors publicly discuss only 7% of the items before them for approval.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who recommended that the board hold next week’s hearing, on Tuesday proposed a number of policy changes for discussion. Among them:

* allowing public access to meetings where supervisors discuss items that will come to the board for decision;

* creating a policy prohibiting the discipline of county staff members for failing to follow board directives that violate the law;

* instituting a countywide policy of releasing official documents to the public as soon as they are available to officials;

* training county staff and committee, task force and commission members on county policy of expediting press requests and open-meetings laws;

* posting transcripts of the board meetings on the county Web site and expanding the types of supporting documents that accompany the agenda on the Web site.

Supervisor Don Knabe called the suggestions a “classic overreaction,” a sign of increasing tension among board members.

Since the release of documents related to the health-care initiative put the supervisors’ actions under scrutiny, each board member except Mike Antonovich has proposed a solution or study of the problem.

On Tuesday, Antonovich continued to argue that open-government laws only apply to a portion of the board’s actions.

“The law also recognizes that the Board of Supervisors has legislative, executive and quasi-judicial authority,” he said. “You have to understand what role we’re playing when we take the actions that we do take.”

Other board members have proposed a variety of solutions. Knabe on Tuesday referred to most of those efforts as “wonderful, do-gooder motions.”

Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke has asked for a countywide public-records policy that makes the county counsel the ultimate authority.

Molina has urged tape-recording closed-door board meetings. She and Knabe have asked the county counsel to reconcile conflicting decisions on whether meetings of board staff members to discuss pending business should be public.