Los Angeles County supervisors met privately Tuesday to debate calls for by The Occasions that they flip over transcripts of two current conferences following alleged violations of one in every of California’s bedrock open-government legal guidelines.
The dialogue, held as a part of Tuesday’s closed-session board assembly, got here after a lawyer representing The Occasions despatched the supervisors a letter accusing them of twice violating the Brown Act, which goals to make sure the general public can watch native authorities conferences.
Underneath the Brown Act, native businesses are allowed to debate sure subjects behind closed doorways. These subjects can embody litigation, efficiency evaluations of workers or union negotiations. Native governments should specify the subject and publicize it on an agenda upfront of the assembly.
“What you’ll be able to’t do is use that as a guise to speak about policy-oriented selections that the general public has a proper to be part of,” mentioned lawyer Kelly Aviles, who wrote the April 21 letter on behalf of The Occasions.
The Occasions alleged the county violated the Brown Act in closed classes on March 24 and April 18 — conferences that got here at a time of disaster for the county’s Probation Division. The March 24 assembly was held the day after state regulators warned county officers that the state would most likely transfer to close down the county’s two juvenile halls.
In each conferences, the county listed “division head efficiency evaluations” on the agenda for the closed session. The Occasions alleges in its letter that the board truly used the time for a broader dialogue of the Probation Division.
The letter cites an announcement that board Chair Janice Hahn offered saying the March 24 closed session was held to “work out a path ahead to maintain each the younger folks in our halls and our workers protected and supported.”
Aviles argued in her letter that such a dialog can be thought-about a a lot wider coverage matter than what the Brown Act permits for.
“Moreover, a preemptive dialogue of the state of county juvenile halls or their potential closures reaches far past the personnel exception,” the letter states.
A spokesperson for Hahn declined to remark.
Along with requesting the transcripts, the letter asks the county to “to chorus from related violations sooner or later.”