Expanding Public Communication with Decision-Makers

The California Brown Act was passed long ago because we believe that the public decisions should be made publicly. Its purpose was to keep the conversations between members of legislative bodies from happening in private, out of sight and ears of the public. The extreme restrictions which were enacted into law actually limited the views of the decision-makers from being shared in any venue but open public meetings which were clearly publicized. This meant mostly that everyone involved in communicating during the decision-making process had to shut up unless they were sitting in the actual meetings. Making sure that the public could hear every word of the conversations that decision-makers said to each other was the primary purpose of the Brown Act. What was sacrificed was allowing the conversations between the public and the decision-makers unless it took place in the very few moments when official meetings of the legislative bodies met.

This important change to the Brown Act still forbids conversations between members of the legislative bodies even on the internet-based social media platforms. It only opens up the possibility of communication between individual members of the legislative bodies and the public. And I’m proposing that the communication be even more focused by having the discussion topic be a proposed plan document, report, or regulation. Placing these documents on an open, accessible website which allows the public to directly comment in real time, provides manageable, productive advice from the public in a greatly-expanded stakeholder engagement process.