notes-groupDecisionMaking-brownAct

notes on the Brown Act

http://www.copswiki.org/Common/BrownAct

a recent court case involving Calaware established that the most that can be charged for copying/scanning relevant records (or just full agendas?) is .10/page

Towards a better Brown Act

These ideas are mostly not mine. However, since politics are involved, i don't want to attribute them to others without getting their permission first -- lemme know if you are the person who told me this and would like attribution.

• the full agenda should be required to be published online
• roberts rules are not quite appropriate -- rosenburg's rules (shorter) are better -- but there is probably room for an even better ruleset
• in the following, "big items" are defined as: ordinances OR norecurring decisions OR spending or taxes or fees over some fixed a dollar amount
• planned motions or big item motions should be required to be published beforehand, in the full agenda, online
• after each meeting, publish minutes online as soon as possible, but in any case significantly before the next mtng
• chair must always refer to items by an informative title or description, in addition to item number
• big items may not be passed by general consent or lumped together; in particular, they may not go into a consent calendar
• this is already in Brown, but let's be clear: you can't go into closed session unless (a) there is an actual lawsuit in progress or (b) the subject solely related to a private matter concerning a non-elected non-official employee
• must videorecord entire meeting
• public comments time: (a) before official discussion on item, (b) after a motion has been made, (c) at end of meeting