pages: OpenGovernmentCommission/2020-06-24.pdf, 13
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OpenGovernmentCommission | 2020-06-24 | 13 | The Assistant City Attorney concurred with Chair Schwartz; stated one of the concerns the City Attorney's office would have is that the status quo of closed sessions remains in place. Commissioner Shabazz stated it is interesting that the issues which brought this up in the first place were two very controversial items in Alameda, referring to the City Manager incident and Measure A; the Planning Board meeting regarding the same topic was noticed a month out, so there was a lot of public participation and robust discussion; considering the constraints of closed sessions and also considering the challenges of participation now, some people do not have access to the meetings; the principle should be what will allow people to participate, no matter what the meeting is labeled; what is the maximum way for people to know about the meetings. Chair Schwartz moved approval to recommend four parts: 1) expand communications as to all meeting types to include social and new media; 2) for special meetings, meaning those meetings about discreet topics that require extensive discussion, that they are noticed 12-days out; 3) emergency meetings continue to be on the seven-day timeframe; and 4) closed session items continue on the seven-day timeframe. Commissioner Little inquired whether there will ever be a circumstance where noticing cannot be within seven days for emergency items, to which the City Clerk responded when the first declaration of emergency was issued, the Brown Act exception of 24 to 48 hour noticing was used when the issue was beyond the control of the City; maintaining that policy would also be helpful and can be done under the emergency section. Commissioner Little suggested an amendment to the motion which would be that special meeting notices would align with the regular meeting noticing timeframe for each particular body. Chair Schwartz stated he accepts the friendly amendment that there would be some carve-out for a statutorily authorized 24 hour period for noticing for exigent circumstances; regarding the alignment of special meeting noticing to the regular meeting noticing requirements, he feels a special meeting should require more notice than a regular meeting and would like to apply the 12-day noticing for all special meetings. The City Clerk clarified Chair Schwartz's motion that the 12-day noticing requirement should apply to all Boards and Commissions, to which Chair Schwartz responded in the affirmative. The Chief Assistant City Attorney stated if an OGC complaint fell outside of a regular meeting date, there would be a 12-day requirement for noticing rather than a seven-day notice, which is okay, but is an unintended consequence; if there has not been any problems with the seven-day noticing for bodies other than the Council, the 12-day rule may not be warranted for all special meetings for all bodies. Meeting of the Open Government Commission June 24, 2020 13 | OpenGovernmentCommission/2020-06-24.pdf |