California’s open meetings laws, the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act of 1967 and the Ralph M. Brown Act of 1953, inscribed into state law these words: “The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
The laws require the meetings of state and local government entities including public commissions, boards, councils and other agencies to be in-person, open to the public, and announced in advance. Remote participation is allowed at meetings only if the “teleconference” location is open to the public and an advance notice and agenda are posted there.
In March 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-29-20, which waived the in-person requirements “only during the period in which state or local public health officials have imposed or recommended social distancing measures.” A law signed last year, Assembly Bill 2449, allowed remote meetings under more circumstances, but only until 2026.
Now that the COVID emergency has ended in California, a number of bills have been introduced to permanently change the open meetings laws so that remote meetings may continue forever without an emergency.
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For example, Sen. Anthony Portantino has authored Senate Bill 411 to eliminate the in-person meetings requirement from local agencies and regional boards and commissions, where members must often travel long distances, as well as from neighborhood council meetings where the distances are not far at all.
A blog post on the website of the California Council of Governments, which has 47 member agencies including the massive Southern California Association of Governments, said it’s time-consuming for local elected officials to travel to regional council meetings.
We think it’s important for government officials to show up in person to face the people they govern, rather than drop in remotely and click away again. If they are required to attend so many meetings of so many councils and boards that they simply can’t get to them all, perhaps we should consider whether we just have too much government.