UPDATED: State Allows Cities To Become Less Transparent

Editor's note: Patch learned that not much will change in Cupertino as a result of the suspension of the Brown Act's requirement of posting agendas in advance of meetings. The City of Cupertino has no intention of changing its current practice of a four-day notice.

The Fremont Union High School District and Cupertino Union School District have been contacted by Patch. We will update you when we learn if the districts plan to change their respective practices.

Cities now have the option of becoming a lot more secretive—if they choose.

Last month, in passing the budget the state legislature suspended the Brown Act mandate that local jurisdictions—cities, counties, school districts, water districts and special districts—post meeting agendas for the public. The suspension also allows local jurisdictions to forgo reporting to the public about actions taken during closed-session meetings.

How many California municipalities will choose to abandon the transparency mandates is unknown. Cupertino Patch learned that not much will change in Cupertino as City spokesman Rick Kitson said they will continue to post agendas in advance. The requirement of the Brown Act states that agendas for regular meetings must be posted 72 hours in advance, and for special meetings 24 hour notice is required.

Cupertino goes beyond those requirements and will continue that practice, Kitson said.

"Agendas are posted four days in advance. Cupertino always tends to exceed what is required by the state. Cupertino residents have come to expect that. That's the tradition here Cupertino," he said.

The League of California Cities is expected to release an official statement on the issue next week, but the organization’s Communications Director Eva Spiegel said for now the suggestion to cities is “stick with the status quo.

“The League has been very involved with the Brown Act,” she said. “We have always encouraged transparency.”

How the state came to the decision of suspending the Brown Act mandates boiled down to one thing: money. In California, mandates placed on local jurisdictions by Sacramento must be funded by the state. In the case of the Brown Act mandates, the state was subsidizing nearly $100 million a year by some estimates. The suspension could last three or more years.

So in an effort to cut expenditures, the state decided to suspend the mandates. 

But according to watchdog Californians Aware—a group that tries to foster improvement of, compliance with and public understanding and use of, public forum law, which deals with what rights citizens have to know what is going in in government—local jurisdictions learned how to milk the system.

They “could get a windfall of cash for doing something they had always done: preparing and posting meeting agendas for their governing and other bodies as mandated by Brown Act amendments passed in 1986—but as, in fact, routinely done anyway since time immemorial to satisfy practical and political expectations,” the nonprofit reported Friday.

State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has introduced a Senate Constitutional Amendment (SCA 7) that would ask California voters if they want the transparency. The amendment is stalled in committee.

"To anyone who's been watching this issue for a while, the real news is not that the Brown Act can be so dependent on the state budget," said Terry Franke, a California media law expert who is General Counsel, Californians Aware.

"The real news is that 17 people in Sacramento are denying the public the chance to say 'Enough'."

In the meantime, the suspension could last through 2015, so it appears the public will need to demand transparency from its representatives if it wants to stay informed.

—Additional reporting by Patch editors L.A. Chung and Anne Ernst