By Anne Lowe
OPEN MEETINGS -- An officer of Californians Aware has demanded an end to board members gathering for unannounced briefings prior to official meetings in the Chula Vista Elementary School District.
Last week, a Watchdog column report in the San Diego Union Tribune detailed the practice of board members gathering for question-and-answer sessions in the district superintendent’s office before convening in official meetings. Board Vice President Larry Cunningham said the meetings have been ongoing for at least 16 years and “no one has ever raised a concern.”
Richard McKee, vice president of open government compliance for Californians Aware, sent a letter Sunday to board members requesting an immediate end to the pre-meeting sessions. In the letter, McKee asks board members to acknowledge that Brown Act violations have occurred and to take immediate steps to correct them by September 17.
If the board members do not respond by the designated time, McKee says in the letter that “it will be assumed the Board intends to continue the practices listed above as it has in the past in violation of the Brown Act.”
The San Diego Union Tribune reports:
The letter quotes a 1968 state Court of Appeal decision in the case of Sacramento Newspaper Guild v. Sacramento County Board of Supervisors: “An informal conference or caucus permits crystallization of secret decisions to a point just short of ceremonial acceptance. There is rarely any purpose to a nonpublic premeeting conference except to conduct some part of the decisional process behind closed doors.”
The Watchdog reviewed two years of school board meeting minutes and found that, on 129 of the last 130 motions, the vote was unanimous.
The original report in the Union Tribune also revealed that $2,035 has been billed to the district’s general fund to supply food for the question-and-answer sessions since 2008.
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