California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation today to restore the state open-meetings law's ban on serial meetings, a common device that members of public boards nationwide use to avoid scrutiny.
The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, overturns "a bad appellate court decision that gave members of local bodies the green light to freely discuss the public's business with each other outside a noticed, open and public meeting so long as no agreement was reached," reports the California Newspaper Publishers Association Bulletin.
Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill last year, asking for one "that more judiciously addresses the problem of serial meetings that result in public policy decisions." CNPA convened a summit of local-government stakeholders in its offices, leading to "compromise legislation that achieved the neutrality of almost all local agencies and their representative organizations," CNPA reports.
The law reads: "A majority of the members of a legislative body shall not, outside a meeting authorized by this chapter, use a series of communications of any kind, directly or through intermediaries, to discuss, deliberate, or take action on any item of business that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body." It also amends the state open-records law to clarify that a local agency cannot discriminate among its members in allowing access to public records.
How does your state's law read? Is it strong enough?
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