San Diego News Network
Opinion
June 3, 2010
By Marsha Sutton
The first notice received on Wed. at 3:57 p.m. notified the media of a special closed session meeting of San Diego Unified School District’s Board of Education the next day, Thursday, June 3, at 10 a.m.
Before even looking at the agenda, I noticed the time sent – 3:57 p.m. – which is clearly less than 24 hours before the scheduled 10 a.m. meeting the next morning.
Then a second notice was received of another school board meeting set for Thursday, June 3, at 4 p.m. This one was sent at 7:23 p.m. the night before – again, less than 24 hours’ notice.
I asked SDUSD chief district relations officer Bernie Rhinerson about this and received this reply from board services director Cheryl Ward:
Brown Act public notice – posted in window of Ed center window – was posted at least 24 hrs. prior to the meeting. Email communication is a courtesy mailing. Majority of the time the email is sent prior legal time frame.
Still skeptical that this was legal, I sent a note to recognized Brown Act expert Terry Francke, head of Californians Aware, a First Amendments rights organization in Sacramento. CalAware provides the media and the public with advice and information on issues related to open government.
He said the school district is in violation of the Brown Act, and wrote:
The Brown Act requires that both the posting of the notice of a special meeting and the delivery of the notice to local media must occur at least 24 hours in advance.
Armed with this backing, I sent another note to school district personnel, including Rhinerson, interim superintendent Bill Kowba, general counsel Mark Bresee, and several board members, asking them for further comment on the issue. This time, Ward wrote back the following:
You are correct. We will ensure that all email notifications of Board meetings are properly transmitted prior to the statutory time frame.
School board member John de Beck said Bresee acknowledged the violation but “shrugged it off as a minor issue because there was ‘no intent’ to avoid open meeting.”
An innocent mistake perhaps. But these folks have been doing this a long time, and this isn’t rocket science to know about the 24-hour notice.
The pertinent question now is this: Are actions taken in illegal meetings valid or void?
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