Wide-ranging amendments to the Brown Act will take effect in 2026. Get the resources special district officials will need to comply.
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Background
On August 22, following intensive negotiations with the author’s office and state legislative staff, CSDA adopted a “neutral” position on Senate Bill 707 (Durazo), a bill that proposes to make sweeping changes to the Ralph M. Brown Act (the Brown Act). CSDA and a coalition of other entities were previously opposed to the bill unless it was amended to address various concerns.
Earlier, at the July 16 meeting of the Assembly Local Government Committee, CSDA provided lead opposition testimony, highlighting the myriad issues with the bill. CSDA was given the opportunity to address the top concerns with the bill, as identified by members of its Brown Act working group. These concerns formed the basis of the specific amendment requests CSDA articulated in its letter to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. In that letter, CSDA identified four main issues:
- The definition of “eligible legislative body” as it applies to special districts (if an agency is an eligible legislative body, it is subject to heightened Brown Act requirements under the bill);
- Ambiguity and confusion around the intended operation of the language related to “eligible subsidiary body;”
- The feasibility in implementing the “applicable languages” provisions; and
- The extension of the invalidation window for actions taken in violation of the Brown Act from 9 months to 12 months.
CSDA and its members succeeded in prevailing upon the author that the language around “eligible subsidiary body” needed refinement, specifically to avoid any confusion about whether the intent of that language was to foreclose the availability of other types of teleconferenced meetings to board members who served on an eligible subsidiary body. As this was not the intent, language was devised to ensure it was clear that board members who serve on an “eligible subsidiary body” are able to use the other types of teleconferencing under the Brown Act as applicable.
Also, after CSDA’s advocacy, the author committed to remove from the bill the language extending the invalidation window within which an individual could file a cease-and-desist notice nullifying the action(s) taken by a legislative body in violation of the Brown Act. Existing law establishes a nine-month window for an individual to lodge such a notice, allowing for these challenges to emerge long after the occurrence of the alleged violation(s). CSDA was not provided with any accounts wherein, owing to the passage of 10, 11, or 12 months, an otherwise valid notice was turned aside for not being timely filed. This factored into CSDA’s advocacy, and the extension of the invalidation window will be dropped from the bill.
CSDA attempted to highlight the difference in resources between special districts and the other types of public agencies (cities and counties) included in the definition of “eligible legislative body.” The bill included cities with a population of 30,000 or more in that definition, providing a point of reference against which special districts could be contrasted. This became the primary focal point for CSDA’s advocacy on this issue: by determining the average level of resources possessed by cities of 30,000 or more, CSDA was able to press for language that limited the population of special districts to those with substantially comparable resources to those cities. In managing to get this language revised, CSDA secured a dramatic improvement to the bill.
The last negotiations centered on the “applicable languages” provisions. Long at issue was the fact that U.S. census data does not appropriately include special districts, and without access to data based on district boundaries, the eligible legislative body of a special district would be unable to use the American Community Survey (the data source identified by name in the bill) to ascertain what languages would be determined to be “applicable languages.” To address this issue, CSDA advocated for language allowing the eligible legislative body of a special district to base its applicable languages on county-level data. The inclusion of this revision to the bill obviates the lack of access to census data based on special district boundaries. Also being added to the bill is a provision that would allow a special district to determine its applicable languages using data that reflects the languages spoken by the population within its specific service area. Although not all “applicable languages” concerns raised by CSDA were resolved by the agreed-upon amendments, the amendments secured, coupled with the totality of other amendments to the bill secured by CSDA made CSDA’s agreement to move to “neutral” appropriate.
With the agreement of the author to accept the amendments discussed above, CSDA fulfilled the directive from its Legislative Committee to secure the best deal possible. The changes CSDA succeeded in making to this bill significantly improve the ability for special districts to comply with the Brown Act as compared to the bill’s earlier iterations. It was for these reasons that CSDA moved to “neutral” on SB 707.
Status: Assembly Bill 259 (Rubio)
Multiple bills were introduced this year that sought to make changes to the Brown Act, including Assembly Bill 259 (Rubio), sponsored by CSDA and the Three Valleys Municipal Water District. AB 259 sought to prevent the provisions added to the Brown Act by Assembly Bill 2449 (Rubio, 2022) related to teleconferencing for just cause and in emergency circumstances from expiring at the end of this year. Ultimately, the State Legislature moved the provisions of AB 259 and other Brown Act related bills into SB 707. Therefore, while AB 259 is now a two-year bill, the statutory changes within the CSDA-sponsored measure became law when SB 707 was signed by the Governor.