Legislation threatens the Brown Act principle that local boards must conduct most of their business in public meetings.
Video meetings for local government boards, like the Martinez City Council, above, are a workable stopgap during a pandemic, but they lack the transparency that comes with in-person gatherings.In the early 1950s, local elected officials often conducted public business in private. Members of a city council, for example, would hash out decisions in advance and then merely formalize them, often without discussion, at an open meeting.
One is especially troubling. AB 1944 — introduced by Assemblyman Alex Lee, D-San Jose, and backed by Sens. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, and Dave Cortese, D-San Jose — is a poorly crafted legal justification for elected officials to hide at home away from constituents and journalists. State senators should reject it.
But video conferencing should not become an excuse for public board members to avoid constituents. During the pandemic remote meetings, important interactions in the local government decision-making process were lost.
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