West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education - workshop

We're on.

The Board of Education retreat for July 28, 2026 to order at 9.06 a.m. And we will start with our meeting procedures. If you are willing to or able to stand, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We will now move on to our land, labor, and body. We recognize that we are presently on the lands of the Tohono O'odham people then acknowledge them as a person of this other land we currently occupy. Labor and body acknowledgement. I acknowledge that the burden of environmental exploitation is systematic. The labor of black and brown bodies in the building of this country and its existence. I remember that black and brown bodies were born and died working this land against their will for generations. I also acknowledge the continued contribution of the land, of the labor of survivors over the centuries to today of all immigrant labor, including voluntary, involuntary, forced, and undocumented people in the building of what we refer to as the United States. Author, Dr. Rochelle Rogers-Ard. West Contra Costa School District Board of Anti-Racism Statement. The governing board is committed to the work of anti-racism, the conscious and active effort to identify, challenge, and correct racial inequities in the systems and institutions within our schools and communities. Racism, explicit or implicit, stands in direct conflict to the fundamental principles of district education to carry district education into the future. We recognize that we must continually renew and reflect on the roots of racism and develop new ideas to meet the time. Unjust ideas and policies and racial inequities they produce have shaped those our schools or society. The board strives to uncover unconscious biases and practices, anti-racism as individuals and as board members. We challenge ourselves to persist through the discovery necessary for growth and learning to deepen our listening and our examination of racism and oppression, and to develop a strong understanding of how our personal experience and feelings fit into the larger picture of continued oppression. Each member of the governing board individually and collectively is responsible for creating and nurturing an anti-racism and anti-racist learning environment. Each student, staff member, and community partner is a respected and valued member of the district community. The governing board is uniquely positioned, and it is our responsibility to identify, dismantle racist ideas and inequitable policies in ourselves and across the district. Therefore, we commit to supporting anti-racist policies, programs, and practices for our children's education and well-being while building strong and inclusive school community. The board commits to holding each board member accountable towards these goals and moving the work of anti-racism forward. We also commit to holding the West Country Council Unified School District staff, students, and community to living these standards of anti-racism in our school. Board approved March 20, 2024. And now we would move on to Rocco.

Board President Hanyana. Present. Clerk Gonzales-Hawley. Present. Trustee Reckler. Good morning, I'm present. Trustee Smith-Bolts. Good morning, present. And Trustee Hernandez. That's right, is absent. Thank you.

So we'll now move on to Agenda review and adoption, anything else? Anyone wants to take on the agenda? Let's see, now we will move on the agenda as presented. So now we will take a five minute break before we start our item B, the West Contra Costa item B, Brown Act training. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone.

MEETING AT 9 24 8 PM AND WE WILL START OFF THIS MORNING BY OUR WITH OUR BROWN HEAD TRAINING.

GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE.

MY NAME IS CARLOS VILLAGE AND WHEN I TEACH YOUNG ATTORNEYS HOW TO PRESENT IN OUR FIRM, THE FIRST THING I NORMALLY TELL THEM IS YOU HAVE TO BE PREPARED FOR NOTHING WORTH And really, if you have a script going into the day, you probably should rip your script up because the script will hit the fan. And so when I woke up at my hotel this morning, I didn't have a comb, I didn't have a brush, I didn't know where I was going. And so this is kind of all the things that come into being in an education lawn and being a support for our school district. So I know on this particular board, we have some experienced members, and then I know we have a couple newer members. But what I'm gonna do today is go through a refresher I'm kind of relieved that we're having it in this setting because I think this will be good for a conversation. So I'm not big on kind of sticking to the script. Obviously we can, we can be flexible, but throw your questions in along the way. I don't mind. I think it's better if you have something, something that's kind of inspiring you at the moment, throw it out there. And then that way we'll tackle it and we'll keep on moving. All right. So the quick overview, first of all, can everybody see on their Zoom what I'm sharing? All right. And If everybody can see this, the overview is going to be just generally the Brown Act, kind of how that impacts us in 2026 with all the different kind of virtual opportunities that we have. We'll talk a little bit about meeting agendas, closed sessions, the PRA and how that plays into what you do both as a board member and in terms of the board meetings that you have. And we will not talk about board self-evaluations. I kind of held that on. I don't think we're going to have time. Because in preparing for this, I think we want to move relatively quickly, have an hour on this, and then see if we can deal with the questions along the way. All right. So if you're looking at kind of the law on the Brown Act, presentation went. Now I'm seeing everybody here. There we go. So the school board is a legislative body. It's subject to the Brown Act and the California Board of Meeting Laws. We're going to go through kind of all the different types of committees and boards and subcommissions that are really part of it. And that's really anything that's created by formal action of the board. So if we have a spinoff committee and it's created by the board through an action of the board, that now would be subject to the Brown Act.

So you have to agendize those committee meetings.

You have to make sure that they're put up and you would confine with all the different requirements of the Brown Act. Now, the exception to that is advisory committees. and those are consisting of less than a forum of board members. So it's a five-person board, correct?

Yes.

Okay. So then your ad hoc committees would have two or less board members on them. All right. So I want to break out committees just a little bit and kind of give you guys some background, and then we can kind of pressure test that. But if you're looking at standing committees, that is only, officially appointed board members and speak in that discussion. So standing committee is something that the board creates. It is now subject to the Brown Act and it has kind of ongoing subject matter jurisdiction, meaning this standing committee is going to tackle an issue on an ongoing basis. So when you get to a standing committee, it's important that board members can attend, because these are public meetings, right? They've been agendized. So we would never take the position that they can't, you know, attend at all. But when they attend, they have to know that they are really only attending in a support role. And really, I go even further. They're attending as citizens, as individual private citizens, as members of the public. They are not attending as board members. So your standing committee, only the board members who've been named to those committees are really on the committee and will be having the roles.

Are we allowed to ask questions? right now or do you want me to hold on to no no go ahead jump in i guess my only question when it comes to this um if there is the official point of board members right and then the rest of my colleagues decide to join right and as the appointed uh board member i want to like just ask the question just a clarified question from that committee i won't be able to do it because now it turns into a board meeting, right? So if it's three or more. So even if someone is in there as an observer, would that still count as a board meeting?

It doesn't because, and here's the difference. So if you have your standing committee and your board members who are named to that committee are participating, they're leading this committee, right? So if you have another board member who's not named to that committee, they're attending really only as an observer. They're attending as a member of the public.

So what we normally recommend, and there's a difference between what we recommend and what happens in real life.

We're not robots, and we understand that. But what we normally recommend for the folks who are attending, that they not participate, that they only observe, right? And to the extent that somebody has a burning question, they just have to ask the standing committee. Let's say they're a board member, they're attending, they're not on that committee, and they just have to ask a question. Then we would say, you ask it in the same way that any matter of the public would be. you go to public comment, you go to decide, you make it clear you are not a board member who's engaging with other board members. You are a member of the public who's asking the committee. And that is, and my first response would honestly be refrain from doing so at all. Wait until you get back to your agendized board meeting and then maybe do close the question as part of a board member report. Because here's the other thing. We have specific Brown Act violations, but in my experience working with board for over 20 years, It is the perception of a Brown Act violation that wastes just as much time and energy of the board and the superintendent than actual Brown Act violations. So a lot of times what we're talking about here is we're giving you these rules. We understand it's substantial compliance. That's what the Brown Act standard is. You're going to do everything you can to comply with the rules, but what you want to avoid is somebody thinking that you didn't comply with the rules. So to answer your question directly, when you come, it's best if you don't engage and you don't participate in the meeting. But if you have a burning question, you have to take off that board member hat and you are now just a member of the public asking that question. So if there's a dais, for example, you're not sitting on it. If there's microphones, you're not behind them. You are wherever the members of the public are and you are there really just as a witness. Unless you participate, probably without.

Please. Sorry. So say that the meeting's online and you get acknowledged as a board member, but you're not part of that, you're not appointed to that standing committee. Do you, you have to announce, thank you so much for the introduction, but I'm here as a member of a public, just to make it clear, because sometimes the meetings are on Zoom. I'm just trying to- Sure.

No, that's a good question. And we're talking about the virtual world too. So I appreciate you pressure testing and some real examples. My first, and keep in mind, I've been a lawyer for a a lot of long time. And my wife tells me that, you know, I don't talk like a human anymore. I talk like a legal bot. But my first preference would be that you don't get introduced at all. And so if any of us are part of that standing committee or the superintendent or staff, let's make a point that the standing committee members are the ones who are kind of running the day for that particular committee. And it's best if we don't even acknowledge or introduce the other board members. But sometimes it's a member of the community or something will say, thank you for attending I also see you. And then I think to your point, that's probably when you jump in and say, you know, I'm only here as a member of the public. But again, that violates the previous, you know, guidance. They don't talk at all. But if they put you on the spot, I think making that distinction, making it clear and making sure that it's on the record. There's got to be other places here where we probably caution that sometimes it's better to leave. It's better to exit out of the situation. And so if I were at a standing committee, so let's say there had a couple of people here on the board. were on the standing committee and I attended to observe, and I quickly saw myself getting pulled into the discussion when people were referencing, well, board member Villegas says this, and what do you think about that? And people were trying to pull me into the conversation. I might leave the meeting because I would be feeling like now it's giving me the impression that now we are all part of this standing committee. And so again, the perception sometimes of the Brown Act is just as important as the actual rule. Did you have a question?

I did so I just want to make sure when you're for standing committee governance ongoing. Assignments that continue year round that all of us as a standing committee.

If the board has created that and it's intended to be you know permanent and ongoing then yes okay.

I want to be clear. When you said that us as a tertiary member. shows up as a public citizen. So with that, though, there is a right to free speech and they would be talking in public comment or do they lose that? Are you recommending that that right, you forego that?

I think we're recommending that the less you participate, the better for the perception that the board collectively is not violating the Brown Act. Now, to my earlier point, we're not robots. And you do not lose your right to attend the meeting or your right to expression. So if you feel this burning need to participate and to make a comment, you should be clear that you are there as a member of the public. And so this goes back to my earlier point. If a dais is being used, you are not on the dais. If public comments mean you're submitting a card and you're going here and you're making your statement from a certain area with all members of the public, you would follow all the different procedures. But again, the most conservative advice is you're there and you're only observing and you don't say, Pete, that way there's no confusion about who's off, who is permanent non-standing committee.

Can I ask a follow-up? No, never mind.

We're not in a standing committee right now, so you guys just, you can do it.

No, no, it's burning, it's burning, I can feel it.

Madam Board President, did you have a question?

No, so, I mean, I guess going back to your, on the diet, so your recommendation, if we were doing it through Zoom, would be standing committee members within the jurisdiction of the Zoom and everything else to stay outside. But we usually use links that are for board members, right? So we have those spaces where, hey, now we're behind the Zoom as board members. Or do we stay in as a public, go in as a public amenity?

And that question has never been asked. So I appreciate that. And I think that's a perfect example how we apply it to 2026. So at some point, Rosa gave me, she promoted me to a panelist, right? And I think that's the perfect example. So your board members who are on the standing committee, they have all permission. They are the webinar chiefs. They're the people who are seen as leading it. Then anybody who is attending, as a non-member of that committee would not have those privileges, would really just be with the rest of the public observing. I think that's a great way from a technological point of view to make the distinction between who's on that standing committee and who's just attending as a member of the public. That's a great question. Thank you. All right. So we shift over to ad hoc committees. These are advisory committees that are less than a quorum. and they must not have continuing subject matter jurisdiction, and they don't have a meeting schedule that's fixed by formal action of the legislative body. So these are kind of one-off issues that maybe the superintendent asks a board member and says, can you look into this particular issue, you and maybe one other board member, or maybe just you by yourself, can you look into this, report back to the board, and it is temporary, something that is a kind of a one-off issue. All right now we we included a little chart because I think this is a little bit helpful to kind of wrap your heads around the difference between say. A standing committee and an ad hoc committee, you see the difference between the permanent and the temporary the scope and I talked about this also continuing subject matter. versus one single task. And that's definitely how I think of ad hoc committees. They are tackling one particular issue. We're examining music and the budget for music in the coming year. We want to have a two or three month study of something. And this one or two board members, because of their background, because of their interests, they're going to tackle this one single issue. Brown Act, now here's a big difference, right? Our standing committees are subject to the Brown Act. When it comes to our ad hoc committee, these are private meetings. And so one of the other examples of where ad hoc committees I've seen frequently used is when it comes to superintendent evaluations. Oftentimes there will be an ad hoc committee of one or two board members that collect all of the input and then help facilitate that process. Sometimes they work with legal counsel on contractual amendments. That's another place where I've seen ad hoc committees used. And so those, for obvious reasons, because of the Brown Act, because of the exceptions for ad hoc committees, these are private meetings. So the ad hoc committee members do not need to agendize them And they do not need to open them to members of the public. All right, so public participation. In a standing committee, you're going to see a mix of the board, staff, and public. For ad hoc committee, there's less than a forum of the board. No public. Again, it's a private meeting. In your schedule, standing committees have those regular meetings. Your ad hoc committees, once the task is over, that ad hoc committee goes away. And that's important. Because if that ad hoc committee all of a sudden starts looking like a duck and talking like a duck, seems to be permanent, now it could transition into a standing committee. So you want to make sure that there's something that kind of poof, makes that ad hoc committee go away, the task is completed. Notice for standing committees, no notice is necessary. It's exempt from the Brown Act, so ad hoc committees don't need any kind of notice. Now, there were some questions earlier about how do you engage, what do you do? And so I want to drill down on one piece in particular, why is it important to have certain people on the ad hoc committee and not change the membership? And so, and I was kind of wrestling with this a little bit and thinking about the best way to present on it. But at the end of the day, if we have two board members who start doing the ad hoc committee, then they're not available in the next two meetings. So then we go to the next two board members and they fill in for those board members. And then we come back and we have a fifth board member who now is on the ad hoc committee. At some point, you're going to have almost like a serial meeting as different board members participated in the ad hoc committee and potentially remember the ad hoc committees are not agendas. They are not open to the public. So now through participation in the ad hoc committee, each board member could potentially know, you know, where other board members are leaning on a particular issue and it's not going to be done in an agenda. So keep in mind, the point of the ad hoc committee is for that committee to come back to the general board. Then make a report to the board at a regular open meeting or a closed session, depending on the subject matter. Then at that point, the board can then participate in the findings and then get back to kind of regular order, if you will. Now, I don't recommend this, but it is in the materials, and so I'll throw it out there. It's possible that the ad hoc committee needs to hear from a particular board member for a particular issue. There is a way, if you work with your legal counsel, that potentially that board member could be invited to be a witness to a subject. So whatever that subject is, imagine we've got two board members and then there's a third board member who has some specific knowledge or something. That to me is we're getting into extra credit. Let's not go to the graduate courts on that. I would say let your ad hoc committee members handle that because here's again, let's go back to the perceptions. Even if you do it the right way, the perception can be, well, I have it on good authority that three board members were at that private ad hoc committee. I know that because I talked to my cousins. We talked to somebody else's cousin who saw them walking into Starbucks. Now, all of a sudden, we have a demand to cure incorrect. And we have somebody who's alleging that they're the brown. It's going to waste your time, waste staff's time. And so let's try to stay away from that.

Please. Going back to the previous comment about switching board members. For our governance committee, specifically, we did appoint an alternate in case, like, both trustee and I, for example, were appointed to that committee and we both worked. So there's been times where, well, not her, but I've had to miss that committee. So, The alternate who was appointed to the president has taken my spot. So are you suggesting even for board standing committees, you should also avoid that? Or is it only for ad hoc since it's a private meeting? And then for the other one, it's an open meeting.

I think you're already on to the answer. More for ad hoc. Okay. So for ad hoc, I would say avoid the swapping in of alternates. And maybe the board could consider, maybe we don't name alternates for ad hoc committees to avoid there being a serial meeting as the opinions are shared amongst them. For a standing committee, I don't have that fear because, again, it's been agendized. So if an alternate subs in, it's a regular meeting. It's, you know, being kind of the agenda's out there, the public has an opportunity to participate. I have less concerns about that.

Okay.

Thank you. Sure. All right. Let's get to the plenner stuff, the exceptions, right? So these are the things that you shouldn't have to worry about, okay? CSPA, I know we have some experienced board members here. So you've probably been to what I call the, what is it, board member prom every year, right? So CSBA, everybody comes out, you learn, you get information, you get trained. It's a great opportunity, I think, to grow as a board member. You have no issue about any Brown Act issues by attending CSBA. But let me tell you about an event I used to participate in. So I was one of those parents who are, you know, suckers. I had that volunteer mentality. itch where i want to participate and i want to help out and do something so i sat on the the school site council for years while my kids were in school and as part of the school site council we would throw the dia de los muertos you know event every year and so um i used to invite the entire board and i would usually be relatively proud if the board showed up in a few years the entire board showed up and it was really it really felt um validating that The board members would take time out of their schedule to support this event. And the alters were beautiful. And so we've always got these great donations. We have great flowers, great food. So it was a really good time. And this is when I was a young attorney. I was at the beginning of my career. So I was probably more a parent than an attorney at that point, right? And doing things for my kids. But one thing I noticed from this very experienced board that my kids attended their school district is when they would come in the room, even though there's an exception, this is a social event. It's not an agendized meeting. They can have a majority of the board there. And sometimes the entire board was there. I noticed the way that they moved around the room. They did not cluster in a majority. If two people were chatting and they saw one person come up, one person would kind of rotate out. And these were all people who had been on the board 10 plus years. They knew how to move in a way to avoid the perception of a Brown Act violation and not just a actual Brown violation. And so keep in mind, you could be exchanging recipes for enchiladas or you could be having a conversation about sports. If people from across the room say, okay, those three are talking and I know those three are always in cahoots, I bet you they're deciding what they're gonna vote on this issue at the next board meeting in three days. The perception can waste your time. And then all of a sudden ChatGPT gets involved And guess what? They're sending you a six page, you know, cease and desist. And now the superintendent's calling us. And that is not where you want your resources and time to go. But I always learned from that, and that was 20 something years ago, that the way they moved around is that they were always aware. And this is the hard part. You didn't become board members because you wanted to be politicians. You became board members because you were active in your community. There were things that you were supporting. You did it for your kids. But once you put that hat on, you have to be aware of the rules of the game. And so you have to move a little bit like a politician in the sense that you can't let anybody perceive you to be violating the law. And so you know when to kind of egg that stage left. All right. Social ceremonial occasions, of course, football games, teachers of the year, all that good stuff. You know, those are exceptions to the Brown Act. But keep in mind how you're moving at these events. Sometimes you're going to have open and notice meetings of other agencies and then open and notice standing committee to the board. We've already kind of hammered those. I'm going to keep moving relatively quickly. I talked about this with the enchilada example, where sometimes it's better just to kind of move on to avoid the appearance that there's an issue, but I'm not going to belabor it now. All right. So we talked about the Brown Act. We talked about all the meetings need to be open. And here's the thing, like so many laws in California, and I love my home state, I'm a native, what is it they say about good intentions, right? So there's a lot of good intentions that go into the laws in California and they can really trip you up. And if you're looking at public records or you're looking at the Brown Act. Now the purpose, let's go there. Let's go to 30,000 feet. The purpose is transparency. The purpose is to make sure that everything that the board is doing is accessible and visible to the public. And so that's a higher calling. That is a really good purpose. Now, we do get bogged down in that purpose, but again, that's the reason why we have these rules. Now, the meeting, it's really easy. Anytime you have a majority of the board members that are present at the same time and place, and they're going to hear, discuss, and deliberate on anything that is about the district, okay? Now, we throw out this legal term that I don't love, which is subject matter jurisdiction, right? I mean, that is enough to put anybody to sleep. The way to think about it is, if the district business and we're hearing it, we're talking about it, we're deliberating on it, and there's a majority of the board members there, we're putting ourselves in a bad situation. Keep in mind, now, CSBA, the board member prom, all those things, even the Dia de los Muertos events, you could, you know, you have the exception, but you could potentially violate the Brown Act if you all of a sudden at the Dia de los Muertos event decide, you know what, let's go ahead and tackle that one issue. I want to know where you guys are on an issue. Let's get our deaths in a row. Guess what? You've taken something that you were allowed to attend, and then now you kind of, you act in a problematic way that could be run valuable. So keep that in mind. All right. Serial meetings. I've touched on these a little bit, but the idea is that one person talks to another person and talks to another person, but it's not the three all together at the same time. It's kind of the happening one after the other after the other. And this could happen whether it's in person, but it also could happen through, let's say, technology, emails, text messages, and things like that.

Can I ask a quick question about that? One thing that I do just to update the board is send a message, either it was email, we could see the board, or a text. And we've already established that no one should be responding to those types of messages. the staff keeping in mind this idea of it not being necessary.

Absolutely. And I'm glad you mentioned the BCC. I had a 20-year superintendent who I had to gently coach for a couple months about keeping board members. And the superintendent had never thought about it. I was like, the BCC, the board members, it makes it harder for a reply all. And so something as subtle as that. And one other thing I like to do when I'm BCCing board members or if I'm the one that's communicating, will usually write in big bolded you know all caps the very first line you know one way communication do not forward now your superintendent is the ceo of the school district so the superintendent has to provide you the elected officials with information so that you know exactly what to do when you get to the board meeting and you know what's going on with your district there can also be situations where there is a lockdown or there is a you know there is a um pandemic or something happened at a particular site the superintendent has to communicate with you and there's no problem with that being a one-way communication where information is going to you that is the way to do it and it sounds like that's the the approach has been adopted all right the virtual world email website blogs texting i don't even think blogs i think we need to update that i don't think anybody's blogging anymore or blogging um even the facebook reference i'm dating myself But you guys can see any one of these things, really any form of electronic online communication could potentially lead to a Brown Act violation or the perception of a Brown Act violation. We're going to talk about PRA a little bit later. But let's just say through ChatGPT, it's open season on PRA requests. And I'm sure this district has been hit just like all the other ones in the state. And so I do probably statewide PRA requests. So those big ones that you see that 100 districts are getting or 500 districts are getting, I help to coordinate those. And sometimes it might take as many as 10 or 20 attorneys to power through these for all the state. It is a huge unfunded mandate. The legislature needs to fix this, needs to do something about that. But until then, we are stuck with the world that we have and the laws that we have. Some of the new chat GPT, some of the new AI platforms, When you're plugging in this information, when they're giving you suggestions and information on how to write a complaint, it will also automatically, some of the platforms will say, do you want to make a PRA request? Is this a publication? So it'll automatically give you a PRA request. So it's not a coincidence that you guys are getting inundated with these types of complaints and the complaints are often accompanied by PRA requests. The reason why that matters here is because what you're texting, what you're emailing may actually come back and invite you guys because at the end of the day, if the question that comes to legal is, are these public records, we may be obligated to say, yes, these are public records. And then the public records are released and the public records reveal that maybe there was a Brown Act violation or maybe there's a perception of a Brown Act violation. But just keep that in mind. All right, there's a couple of new rules. I'm not gonna drill down too much because I'm very aware of the time here. So I'm gonna kind of move through these relatively quickly, but there's been some Brown Act modernization, the social media rules where board members are prohibited from engaging on social media in a way that would potentially violate the Brown Act. That was initially, I think it came up during the pandemic and it was sunsetting in 2026, which sounded like a long way away, we're here. And so that's been extended. And then there's now some accommodations that are being made for teleconferencing via Zoom if you have a disability. There was also an update in SB 1732. I'm not going to belabor this. This one was a little bit more unique to, say, city councils and things like that. But the previous rule was you only violate the Brown Act if it resulted in a final collective occurrence. But now that closes that loophole. So it's banning any series of communications of any kind. I think this is the way we've always trained it. So I wouldn't get overly concerned with what the loophole is or any of this. At the end of the day, if you're using technology to communicate with other people about district business, you have the potential to have a Brown Act violation. All right, so a couple of different ways. So we have the hub and spoke, when that is one board member who is talking, kind of polling and talking to the other board members, right? They're the hub with spoke. I think about how a bicycle works here, but that is one form of potential serial meetings. The other is the getting a telephone, right? So it starts with one board member, talks to another board member, who then talks to that board member, who talks to that board member. Of course, by the time it gets to you, the message is lost. But the potential is you may now know I'm going to vote or what I think about a particular issue. So that in itself could be a problem. So people always ask me, well, does that mean I can't talk to other board members about board business, about district business? And the answer, of course, is yes, you can, because you're in less than a quorum.

But this is where we get into a challenge between what you can do and what you should do.

In having that conversation, you run the risk that if that person forgets about the conversation with you or is not thinking about it, and all of a sudden you have a conversation with somebody else, guess what? You guys have just violated the Brown Act. It was unintentional. You didn't mean to it. But it wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have talked to you in the first place. But me talking to you puts you in a spot where now if you are not disciplined and you don't shut it down from there, we have the potential. ground act violation so just keep in mind just because you can't do something if you talk to your lawyers you're probably going to give you the conservative legal advice which is just because you can do something doesn't mean you should and as elected members of the board there is a heightened scrutiny that's on all of you this also falls in if the public is telling you right so for example i've had to tell organizations who are calling me like well we know how

trustee reckler is going to vote because she told us and i had to stop and be like i don't want to know that's right so that's correct right even if you find out through what about social media let's say like an organization post like we've had a conversation with three board members and it's like would that be considered a brown entry violation well yeah it doesn't happen i don't think but i view that more as um

politics of those organizations trying to get the board to a particular vote. And so I don't think if an organization posted, we have talked to three individual board members and confirmed they will vote yes to support music at the upcoming meeting. I would probably question what that organization is talking about. And I would think they're trying to manipulate the board to get to a certain place. Now, if they did talk to three different board members and all three of them did confirm that that's the way they're going to vote, then I think it's leaning towards something problematic. So I think you have to have a poker face and you and this is the part where it's hard. You didn't get here because you had a poker face. You didn't get here because you were just passionate about issue. You got here because you wanted to effectuate change. So that's one of the hardest things that I see in working with organizations is sometimes you have to turn back to the organization that got you here. You have to say, as a board member now, I have to operate a little bit differently. And so if I tell all of you what I'm going to do in a meeting, somebody shared that to somebody else, there could be the potential for the perception of a Brown Act violation. Now, in the example that you used, I'm not actually hearing the board necessarily violating the Brown Act or individual members violating the Brown Act. But sharing with people how you plan to vote on a particular issue is problematic. And this can lead to the waste of your board's time as people think that you violated the Brown Act. And the example is perfect. I don't hear necessarily a Brown Act violation because you had conversations with people. But those conversations sometimes can be, you know, can lead the board astray. Okay. All right. Chain communications. We talked about that. Now, when it comes to what kind of communications that we're trying to avoid or that lead to the potential for a Brown Act violation, substantive conversations, right? We're advancing or clarifying understanding. We're facilitating agreement. We're advancing emotions. Briefing or information sessions. Now, that is, I think, a very traditional way to think about it, right? Is there any meat in the email? Is there any meat in the conversation or the text message? But keep in mind, under the new social media rules, it could be a thumbs up. It could be an emoji or something like that, because potentially make people believe what you think or how you plan to vote. To me, that's the more critical piece. Did you respond in the communication in a way that tipped your hand as to how you plan to vote outside of a regular scheduled meeting? That to me is the critical piece. So be careful. If you're writing an email thinking, I'm going to thread the needle on this. I'm going to kind of express my support, but I'm not going to say this. I'm not going to say that. Just keep in mind, anything that you're doing in writing, especially if you're talking to one of those third parties, that's probably all going to be public records. So you should be very careful how you're communicating. And here's the other thing, and this is not to get around the brownie. But I do think it's probably better if those people reach out to you and say, give me a call. You know, let's meet up for coffee. I'd rather you have a conversation with somebody than to now create a bunch of writings that people are pointing to subject to the PRA that they're going to make some leap that you'd buy a little brownie. All right. So when it comes to emails, and the superintendent touched on this earlier, And the big piece here is we're not forwarding those emails. If there is a one-way communication from the superintendent about some substance, you know, that we need to know, then take that, do not forward it, don't do anything with it. But keep in mind, I like that people are being VCC'd. So you should assume if it's coming from the superintendent, the rest of the board is on it. If it's a board communication, then the other board members are going to be VCC'd. So just know that they're all getting the same information that you're getting, So once you get that information, you cannot talk about it with other board members for all the reasons we discussed. You should refrain from it because you can quickly lead to a serial meeting outside of that. Now, some of these other tips are just reminders to you that what you're writing often can be a public record. And so what I tell boards all the time, I tell superintendents is there's no exemption for embarrassment. If you wrote something a little, let's say off color, in the email and we get a PRA request. That happens all the time. We may recommend to you that that would be a public record and probably should be released to the public. So just keep that in mind in the way that you're communicating. You now are an elected official. All right. Any other questions on that before I move on? Avoid reply all at all costs. Reply all is not your friend when you're avoiding a vote. All right. So we talked about texting, blogging, social media, and I think We talked a little bit about serial meetings. One thing that we haven't necessarily touched on is texting during meetings. And so the one thing I would throw out there, and so I was working with this board years ago, and they had given everybody laptops. And the laptops were intended to follow the presentation from staff. I think at the time they were really in this push to stop using paper. So they had these laptops, or maybe it was iPads, And so they would get the information. And somehow, at some point, somebody figured out how to kind of jailbreak the texting function. And so you would see a board member on the left-hand side of the dais would kind of look down their iPad or laptop. And then you'd see a board member all the way on the right-hand side would look down and then would smile or laugh or react. And it was clear the two were communicating via text on these laptops at the same time. It wasn't too long before a member of the public picked up on this and now submitted All the text messages between those two board members. Now, in the end, I don't remember it leading to much of an issue having to do with the Brown Act or anything. I think they were just like joking around throughout the meeting, which also led to allegations that they were in cahoots or that they had some kind of relationship. At the end of the day, it wasted time. It wasted energy. It wasted resources. That's probably my biggest message. There was no Brown Act violation. And as your legal counsel, you know, we could always help you guys with cures and threats. but the perception of a Brown Act violation here was just as bad as the actual Brown Act violation. All right. Serial meetings prohibited. The only exception is the members may communicate outside of a public meeting in order to answer questions or provide information. So one thing that you might see is a board member misses a meeting. The board member reaches out to a board member and say, hey, I missed the report on ABUC. Did that happen? Yes, the report happened. Who has the report? Superintendent and staff have the report. Thank you very much. So that is information. I wasn't there. I missed it. I asked another board member. That board member gave me information, didn't talk about how they voted or how they plan to vote. I'm now gonna go to my superintendent. I'm gonna get the information. And I did not talk with the superintendent about this in advance. So I hope she forgives me, but you need to use your superintendent because your superintendent is the person who can give you information and can keep you clear and steer away from Brown Act violations. So very effective boards use their superintendent in a way to get that information to do district business. To me, that's always the safest way. That's your CEO. So it makes it easier for you to get the information that you need. And I'm sure you've been in board meetings where you have questions about district business and you ask the superintendent that question and superintendent will then refer to a member of cabinet and say, we're going to get that information for you. That's the cleanest way to do it. And so as weird as it sounds, try not to rely on your other board members. because again, it leads to the perception that people know what you're thinking or know how you're going to vote and there could potentially be a Brown Acquisition. All right, let me keep moving here. So we talked about this earlier that the communication may occur only if the person doesn't communicate to other members. If I were a board member, I wouldn't wanna take that risk, right? And it's not that I don't trust my fellow board member, but it's like, I'm putting them in a spot. If I'm a board member and I come to you and I wanna talk about some district business, I'm now putting you in a spot where you know where I'm at. And I don't know if, like, for example, if I'm telling you, you don't know if I've already talked to another board member. You don't know if unwittingly you're now part of a Brown Act violation because before I came to talk to you, I came to talk to another board member. So to use the example that you used earlier, you might want to consider, you know, love you, board member, but I, you know, if you're going to start getting into that, it's probably better that I... I was better I don't hear this right now, because I don't want there to be any perception with the right. Being an elected official is a strange thing you're gonna have to you're gonna have to work in a weird ways. Again, this is just a reminder, these meetings are not covered by the brown act so individual contact we talked about it not necessarily a violation in and of itself there's always a big risk there other conferences other other meetings Community meetings social gatherings one of those are subject to the brown. We talked about you can't discuss district business. I'm going to keep moving. Meeting agendas, 72 hours in advance for regular meetings, 24 hours for special meetings at a location really accessible to the public. So this is a public meeting. So if a member of the public wanted to come in, we would accommodate them, and then they would get all these materials that you guys have probably heard a million times and, you know, for your experience board members. All right. The agenda descriptions, again, think substantial compliance. So I get a lot of questions, did we do this perfectly? I don't think that's a requirement on the Brown Act. The requirement on the Brown Act is that the public has to know and have an idea of what kind of business you're bringing in for the board. That is the critical piece. So as long as there's a brief general description of the item that's gonna be described, it doesn't have to be a long opus, you have satisfied your obligation to have a correct agenda for board business. All right, now if it's not on the agenda, You can't take any action on it. And this comes up usually in the context of somebody making a public comment. They really want to rope you into an issue. It's not even on the agenda. So what I do, what I would do as a board member is, and again, this is where using your superintendent is important. I would probably say, thank you for your comments. I'm going to direct your comments to the superintendent who can report back at a later meeting or can say who can report back if necessary, right? Because keep in mind, They may be talking to you about tinfoil hats and how, you know, there's jet streams and some really interesting concepts, right? The superintendent might say, you know what, we're not going to spend district resources looking into that and looking into the radio waves and how they affect the moon and Mars. I think we're going to move back on to our district business. So use your superintendent as that buffer, you know, who can kind of help decide when district resources are going to be invested. Working with the board president, of course, on the agendas. Because sometimes something will come up and it goes to the board president. Almost all your board bylaws, typically, the board president will work with the superintendent to set the agenda. And the board president has to decide, is this something that we're going to invest time in at the next meeting? Or you know what? This has already been addressed. We're not going to invest time in this. We've already kicked this horse too many times. We're just going to move on. So use the superintendent. Superintendent can support the board president. And that's the best way to do this. All right. Now, there's one other note here to ask questions of the staff or the public for clarification. Keep in mind, it's like, be careful what you wish for. If you ask for that clarification, you may just get it, and you may just spend another 15, 20 minutes on the topic if you're getting clarification from a member of the public. I know the public comment wouldn't last that long, but sometimes I think the best response is simply to refer to the superintendent and kind of be done with a particular issue. Imagine if every member of the public, you guys went and asked clarification, you guys would probably be there all night. I'm sure your board meeting already runs late as it is. All right, we talked about asking staff to report back. You can make brief announcements. Sometimes these are gonna be part of your board member reports. And again, you know, if there's no need to take immediate action, just remember, you know, when the agenda is posted, that is the appropriate time to kind of take up an action and then potentially have a forward action on an item. So board members may ask to have a specific matter placed on a future agenda. Your bylaws will tell you exactly what those rules are. I've seen a couple of different ways. Sometimes it's automatic where if the board member asks, it will be on the next meeting. Other times I've seen it in a one-two punch where the board member asks for it. At the next meeting, it'll be agendized for all the board members to vote to decide if at the following meeting, it will actually be on the agenda. So I didn't review that particular piece before I came in. If you guys want us to kind of unpack that, we can. Normally, the way I've seen it and kind of using regular courtesy and working with the board president, if a board member raises an issue that is relevant to everybody and hasn't been addressed, then normally the board president will find time in upcoming meetings to address that issue. All right. So I'm going to move on. Emergency meetings need no advance notice. These are very specific issues where, you know, severely there's a potential to severely impact public health or safety. Talk to your legal counsel before you're scheduling an emergency meeting. But that's something that typically, you know, there's going to be one hour notice. Then you got dire emergency meetings. You just have to tell the media at the same time the members are being notified. We're all hoping that nothing in any one of these categories is happening to your district. So just keep in mind.

By media, how extensive? You said you have to just let the media know. I don't think we've ever been in a dire, maybe COVID, but outside of that.

They wouldn't even do it for COVID.

Yeah, that's a good example. Actually, it's a great example. So but to the point, if there was something that happened, something like that, then you're telling your board members, I don't think you would copy the media on that. But the idea is you're substantially complying where you can say, I notified my board members at 901. I notified the local media at 902. Paradise Fire. There you go. So something that was going to, a dire emergency, a crippling disaster, mass destruction, terrorist act. So one hour notice may endanger the public. So we don't even have an hour. But the idea is you're not just telling the board, you're telling the media. And I would suspect that in working with the board secretary, there's probably a list of people who automatically get the agenda. And on that list is probably members of the local media. So I would kind of think about that and say, who are your frequent flyers? Who are your local media people that always come to your board meetings? And so maybe have a short list and boom. They're the last people you're probably going to be thinking about at that moment. But again, this is the point of transparency. All right. We talked about regular meetings and special meetings. I'm not going to go through that. But actually, it is in the context of public comments. It's a little bit different. So I'm going to tackle this just really quickly. At a regular meeting, they have an opportunity to address the board on any district business. Regular meeting, any district business. And I think here's one thing I've learned about public commons. Sometimes it takes longer to shut down a public comment than to simply let it run its course. Now, is this a one-minute or a three-minute district or somewhere in between?

We're a two.

You're a two-minute district. Okay. So those two minutes, just in the time when the person starts talking, to shut them down, to say this, to kind of readjust them, sometimes it takes longer to do that. Then it's like, well, this is my time to start. Before you know it, you've spent five, six, seven minutes kind of figuring out this one person's comment. Okay. In my opinion, as long as this person is not completely disrupting the meeting or saying something that is offending everybody or threatening people, I think let it run its course. Do you guys turn off the mic? You guys already have a system. Give them their two minutes, hit the mic, hit the buzzer, and then we're moving on to the next one. In special meetings, you have an opportunity to address the board on any item, but it has to be the one that's agendized. Here's the concept. It's a special meeting. We had 24 hours notice. Special meetings are not done for silly reasons. They're done because the board has to take something on that is specific to that meeting. So you don't want a member of the public just, you know, we don't want 20 people there wasting time on the music program when the special meeting has to do with a very important personnel action. So. keep them focused and say, I'm sorry, that's the point where I actually would cut them off. And maybe I would even look at the board comment and they say, submit cards here. Okay, and on the cards, do they hint at what they're gonna talk about or just their names?

They should.

No, they shouldn't. There's space for them. They should, right? Mine might say, et cetera, dot, dot, dot. So I think if your meeting is about personnel action and they put in their music program, then what you probably would say is, Mr. Smith, before you begin, Your comment part says you're going to hear talk about music. That's not why we're agenda. This is a special meeting. If you don't have anything to say about an agendized matter, I would ask that, you know, refrain from speaking, please.

So if I understand correctly, though, you have options in the special meeting. You may schedule open public comment or you may schedule public comment that is only for items on this agenda. Is that accurate?

I think the way I think about it is at every meeting, you have public comment, period, full stop. Every meeting has to have public comment. Differences, if it's a regular meeting, the public comment could be about anything having to do with district business. If it's a special meeting, it has to be about something on the agenda. And to your point, I don't know that boards police this necessarily. And for the reasons I just described earlier, right, And I've been at special meetings, and I've seen people jump up and start talking about the changing of the mascot. We're here for a personal reason. We're here on a Saturday. It's got nothing to do with the mascot. But this person wants to talk about the mascot. And so I've leaned forward sometimes. I've locked eyes with the superintendent or the board clerk, and they've looked at me like, you know what? I'm just going to let this run, and we're going to be out of here. And then I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to jump in because they want to just let the two minutes go. We'll move on. But keep in mind, if you have 30 people who are there, and they all want to talk about the music program, and that is not why the special meeting was convened, in a situation like that, you might have to shut it down.

So, to be clear again, we should have some sort of text that says that the public comment for this special meeting is for items directly on this agenda. Is that...

I think it's helpful when that comment card is completed. But if it's not, and I'm at a special meeting, and I take it that you guys probably don't have very many special meetings, maybe a few a year. Okay, maybe a few more. So when you have these special meetings, let's say I'm looking at a comment card, right? And I see it's blank. So Mr. Smith, thank you. Welcome to the dais here. I just want to make sure before you begin your comments that it is about an agendized map. Mr. Smith says, sure, it kind of is. And then they start on the agenda as, you know, we should not be taking this personnel action because, you know, the tinfoil hats and the moon and the Mars and all that. At that point, you're looking at the clock and you're like, I hope this just runs the course.

I think I'm trying to get what you're saying.

Does it have to be on the agendas?

Do we specifically on the agenda with the 20 word or less, you know, put on their head? You know, public comment will only be addressing items on the agenda when it's a special meeting. Like, is there a note that has to be on there around the public comment so that people aren't confused? Because if we're shifting to doing things different, not policing this, but we're not making this shift, like for the continuance, do we, can we specify? On the special meetings around the our agenda was public comment, like, you know, public comments will be taken on agenda item from wrong versus leaving it open to interpretation of a regular meetings. Any more comment is accepted.

I like it as an idea to clarify for people who want to make a public comment. So I can see a scenario where you have on your regular agenda items. or your regular agendas, you would have something that public comments shall be permitted on all matters having to do with district business. We do. Very clear. So that makes now on your special meetings you might have public comments will be limited to items on the agenda. Boom.

See, because everything you're writing down, I'm like, we're going to bring that to our standing committee.

Well, these are little ways that you can improve your governance and kind of get to a smoother meeting. And then, by the way, going back to the example I was using, When you say, all right, Mr. Smith, as we've stated in the agenda, we're here for a special meeting, and special meeting public comments are limited to items on the agenda. I just want to make sure before you begin, your comments are limited to the agenda items. So I think that's a good way. I always like to tie something back into what's on the agenda or what's in the policy. It's not me, board member Villegas, just making the rules as I go. This is things that the board has decided. These are our bylaws. These are the Brown Act. This is what we're supporting, all these collective rules. This is not about me.

Did you have a question? It's more of, like, procedurally. I mean, we get a lot of public comment in this district, and a lot of it also sounds soon. So they're actually not going to place what they're speaking on. Well, I also don't see it feasible for the world president to ask such a question, especially when they're assuming him. So I think that probably, I agree. I think the speech at the beginning that you made, right, at the beginning of, like, public comments for this. I think it probably isn't as appropriate. Otherwise, it'll be really difficult for you to make it every time.

And I think making it, I think my whole thing is giving people clarifying. Like if we have a special board meeting and we see 20 people show up, it's easier to have that clarification in there that people deciding, hey, President Ayanna decided today that we're not allowed to give public comment on anything because usually at all our meetings we're able to public comment on anything. So it just kind of supports I think the push from the board on procedures, having it solidified in writing. I know that during our regular public meeting, we're able to take everything, but it just kind of started getting people accustomed to the, I didn't know. And if we do one day have 50 people show up to our special board meeting. And you might. That's what I'm saying, you know, because we haven't solidified that, right? We haven't solidified it all. what action we're taking on certain items, then it's helpful to have it on there. Because it would, I mean, we always have angry people, right?

I like both, to be honest with you. I like it being on the agenda. And then I like the idea of the board president making a comment. Just a reminder to everybody, this is a special meeting. So any public comments will be limited to items on the agenda. Okay, great. All right. We talked a little bit about public participation, and regular special meetings. Now, one thing to keep in mind, you can't do these public comments at the end once all the business is taken care of. The point of the Brown Act, again, is transparency in the conduct of the people of business. That also means public participation. So the public has to have the opportunity to make a comment before or during the consideration of that matter. Some boards will have all the public comments at the very beginning, and even if the meeting goes on for four hours, everybody has their shot. They like being there all night long. So they have a series of public comments that are when those particular matters are going to be discussed. The style is up to you. Question around that.

Because we have both. We have a big public comment space right at the beginning of the meeting. But then we also have particular comment spaces during each item that we're talking on. Is there a way that we can... push to have people fill out those comment cards completely. And I think because that's something that we've had previously to where like, hey, if somebody's talking on item F, but, you know, we haven't started the agenda, like I'm just going to talk about item F during the regular public comment because I don't want to be here all night, right? And specifically in our, you know, what we've tried to do is like wait till the item is called and then speak on it, not to have 50 people take up the first two hours because we've done over two hours of public comment at the beginning. So by the time we're able to do the work, like, can we enforce legally from that standpoint of like, we need to have a completed comment card. So we ensure where everybody's facing that because.

You can, but there's a couple of challenges. The first I think is logistical, right? because you are board members. So you're going in, you have your board member hat on, you got your game face on, you have your agenda, you are going to go conduct your business, right? You're not going to really have a lot of time to sort through the common cards. That's going to be staff that are going to be helping with that.

So the first logistical challenge is staff now is running around. Sometimes they know the people, sometimes they don't.

Sometimes the names are complete. Sometimes they're using, you know, an alias. So it puts a lot of pressure on staff to try to figure out, okay, This person put 7E, but I think it meant 7F because what they're talking about in the comment. So now you have staff members kind of in the crowd trying to figure out from the people what they're going to do. So that's kind of the logistical challenge. The other challenge I think is the legal one, which is let's say somebody gets it wrong. Let's say they are a 7A and say it should have been 7F. It's just a well-intentioned error. They didn't do it right. Do we want to put ourselves in a position where we're shutting down public comment? Now we have the ACLU knocking on our door because they've heard – that in our district, we don't let people make the comments. In my mind, and this is a hard one because I don't want you guys to have an open public comment section that lasts for two hours because you front loaded all of them, right? But then it kind of gets you to a place where if you have individual public comments and somebody is wrong, then I think, let me go back to your original question because I think that's gonna be the most helpful. Can you find a way to steer the public to make the comments at the right time? Short answer, yes, you can. Just know that in doing that, staff is going to be your enforcers, for lack of a better word. So when staff gets a public comment card, they're going to look at it and they're going to say, okay, this is about the personnel report. Okay, personnel report is an 8C. So I think what staff would maybe do, and I don't know how we would set this up, but staff would need to figure out, okay, when it comes to Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith is coming to the dais right now. He's like, he's walking up. And he's there at the beginning of the meeting. We haven't even gotten to item two. And he's already trying to make his public comment. But we see on the card that he wants to talk about AHC. So now what do we do? Do we have the member of the staff go to talk to Mr. Smith and say, I think your comment comes later at AHC? Mr. Smith might say, you know what?

I can't.

I have to work a night job. I can't. I can't. This is not the time I can give a comment. So I think you can and should have ways where you steer these people to the right times, but there's always going to be exceptions.

I think, again, some scripting. We can make a nice script that's not, you know.

One thing is just, you know, it's just that we've had this conversation before, like how do we make public comment more efficient to be able to then move on to the conducting of the work? Because sometimes even after two hours, we still won't be done with public comment, and then at the end of the meeting where, you know, people are upset because we didn't get to finish the agenda, you know, because we couldn't take our work. Right. Because it's just like, it's already, you know, we've been at board meetings for so many hours and hearing public comment for so many hours. Right. So it's just like, how do we manage some of that to be able to then get onto the work?

If your public comments are growing, I mean, First of all, good on you. The community is interested. I've been to some board meetings and nobody's there and nobody cares, right? So good on you. It's overly interested in what you're all doing. So that's probably a good thing sometimes until it's not. But I do think that there's ways through governance, what I would probably be doing is looking at your board bylaws and saying, do we need to create an exception where, first of all, if there's 30 people that want to talk about one topic, there are strategies to limit your time. There could be a motion because we have 30 people that all want to talk about 7C. I think we're going to limit this. We're going to ask that people consolidate their comments. There are things that you can do to make those more efficient. But I think It's better that Madam Board President is not the dictator who's deciding this. It's better that your bylaws have some flexibility to account for these situations. That's where you guys, through a governance training session, you start saying, okay, look, these public comments are getting to the point where we're probably spending more on public comments than we are on substantive business. It's important that we hear from the public, but it's also important that we get our business done, right? And so the public is just addressing us, but we still have to do this meeting So that's where I would create some flexibility in your bylaw, maybe to limit the amount of public, the amount of time for individual people, maybe to consolidate, maybe to steer people to different item matters. And maybe it says in your bylaw, if you indicate that you are going to make a comment about a particular matter, we are going to hold your comment until that matter is discussed. So that way it's fair and that way the board gets that information before they consider the particular matter. There's ways we can kind of tinker with it. But I wouldn't want any board president to be on the hook to do that by themselves and want that to be reflected in the bylaw. Does that help people in some?

I have some ideas. Because I think we've juggled a lot of like, you know, even allocating, I think, staff time to like ensuring that, you know, we have staff at the table who's willing to pay when you turn it in, look at it right then and there to kind of address some of those before they even hit the next step, which is them. the board, but it's just, you know, how do we kind of manage some of that to be able to move on items? Because I think once we break, once we bend the rules, like if we say, Hey, we're letting this one slide and then everybody else, because they wrote it on there, it's not having to speak. Then people get really angry. And then they're just like, we all want to speak now because if you let one, we all have to do it. So we're really one of those that we have to start establishing. I think those, things that we are expectations on certain things, because if we kind of let one thing slide, then it becomes a bigger problem.

Absolutely. And you have to be consistent in how you apply it. Absolutely. And by the way, I don't think this is a, this is a topic where you get there and it's all good. I think this is something where every single year you have to double down on the bylaw. You have to look and see, do we need to revive it? Okay, we're good. And then we have to have staff consistently work on it over and over and over again. So it gets to the point where the public accepts the procedures and then they know how it's done. And I've had some boards that are really strict. They say you have to submit your card by 15 minutes before that board meeting begins. That board has made a strategic decision. In order to get the efficiency that they want, they're willing potentially to entertain the risk of a challenge that they denied somebody of a comment. So threading that needle and getting to the place where, hey, We got some efficiency, but we had some rules. You can't just break in at 7.03 when the meeting's already started, and you want to have a three-minute comment on something that's not going to even be discussed for three hours. So staff has to be willing to kind of jump into the fray and then get information. There's something you guys can play around with, with this idea that you're taking public comment cards, but they have to be complete. So if your public comment card is not complete, then it may not be honored. But again, the risk that you're running is that somebody's going to say, you denied me the ability to speak. I think if you're setting this up through the bylaw, that's probably the most way. Have legal counsel pressure test the bylaw to make sure that nobody's being denied public participation.

And then after the first hour, we go from two minutes to one minute.

I like that.

However, that's always an issue. Because then we have folks saying, well, I came in early and I submitted my public comment at this time, but I wasn't able to speak my two minutes. That's something that happens every time that there's a hot topic. Is there a way that, I'm not sure if it's in the bylaws, I haven't, that we can put it in the bylaws of like making it more official? Because I think we just announced it.

It's in there? Yes, we just approved it. We just approved that update. If we didn't, it's about to. Okay. Yeah. But we wrote that in. Okay.

I liked, I liked the concept and then I immediately regretted it. Right. Because, because what I realized is if we had, because I think that's a great idea, right? We have, we have gradations. So if you're at the beginning of the meeting, you know, we have a little bit more time, but if it's already 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, we have to start winding this down. But I realized that people are going to gain that. So if I know my comments about 8F, but if I wait till 8F time, I'm only gonna get one minute, I'm definitely gonna go out of order. And so I think having that kind of very rule is problematic. And maybe the better way to go about it is that the entire board can decide if public comment is gonna be reduced or whatever it is. What I might like to see is if you're in a place where you know that we've gotten a certain amount of public comment cards, Matter of fact, that could be the way you do it is if we receive over five public comment cards about a particular topic, we will reduce the speaking time to one minute or something like that. I'm just throwing out random numbers, but an idea.

I think the way it's written, and I'd have to check, is the first hour is two minutes. Order receive when they come in. Alternate Zoom and person. At the end of the first hour, I think it says... with consent of the board or something like that, like proposed by the president, but with the consent of the board or some sort of language like that, where it's not just the board president, it's, you know, the body that's deciding to extend.

Yeah, and that makes sense. I guess the only thing I'm feeling out of that is that You it's lopsided, right? So anybody who it creates an environment where I want my full time, I need to push in the two hours. And that goes right to your point. Now you're out of work. Somebody is going to go out of work because they want full time.

I think my question is now how much longer. On. So, so one of the hardest things for us to manage has been the right. Um, I think that's a really touchy subject because in my eyes, I'm like, I want it to be fair across the board. Right. Um, but we'll have people come in public comment, put a public comment card in that also get on our zone line, because if there's five people on zoom and their line goes quicker there, because we're alternating from a zoom and in person. And you came in at number 40 in person, but you're five on the zoom. Like, how can we manage, I think, some of that? Or is it that now we're shifting this back off to like in, you know, in present public comment?

So not a legal question, but what I hear you saying is so people are coming in and they're submitting cards to both and just kind of waiting to see which comes up first. Yeah, and I would probably be leaning on staff to weed out some of those things, right? Because if I see two John Smith, then I think we're only going to take one comment from John Smith. Now, the question for me is, does it matter? Because once John Smith speaks the first time, they're not speaking again, are they?

But I mean, I'm talking more about the fairness around that time frame, right? Because they're trying to get in within the first hour, right? So if we have, you know, 30 people you know they're in prison and they submitted their card but hey I just showed up and now I want to put a you know get on the zoom quick because there's no line there like the fairness of the complaints about because we're alternating right yeah and trying to like how much further do we have to continue to take zoom like is that a shift that we could potentially and also it's hard to interrupt and also it's like

When they get called on Zoom, they come up to the mic instead of doing their public comment. So that has happened a lot where it's like they raise their hand on Zoom, they have a public comment, but then when Rosa or Nancy call them on Zoom, instead of unmuting on Zoom, they go up to the mic.

So they're there on Zoom in person. They got Zoom going on their phone and they're there in person. So what I might consider doing in a situation like that, if I see you and you're giving me a public comment card, then I also see that you're in Zoom, that I might disregard your Zoom. And I might just pop you into in-person. You don't get the option to be in Zoom when you're there present, if that makes sense.

Okay. I have a question to my colleagues. So how do they know that the Zoom line is shorter? What about when they see?

I'm not going to say that they see.

You see.

But they don't see.

No, they're just submitting votes.

I think they can see. I think they can see the right hands.

They would know once you stop alternating. No, but I think that they don't know. They just pick both sides to see what they're getting.

They can't see right now.

No, I don't think so.

I think they're just going.

They're hoping that, hey, I can be called within the 2020. you know, within an hour and see where I get caught first. I think that's my concern, that it's just like you're double dipping into two different settings because we might have a shorter line over here that then there's, you know, that you might not be caught within the first hour.

Okay, so they may not really know. No, they don't know. They're just being like, okay.

Yeah, or we've had it to where it's like, hey, if I don't get caught within, first two hours and i have to go home at least my hand is still online and the zoom quick so then i could just exit and we'll call in person and it's like hey they're not here and then we'll call them online and it's like now they're on zoom right it's just they're kind of double it yeah okay and then my and then my other just concern that we'd have to be very sensitive to is i mean like running public comment it's like a job within itself i mean yes

I mean, so I think we should try and simplify what we've got going on, you know, in whatever way we can. I'm not sure I have an answer to that, but I mean, like just listening to the logistics of how this small part, you know, this part is managed, it's like crazy.

Yeah, and I already found a problem with the idea that I had, which is if people, right, if people are here in person, we're only going to honor you in person. But the example that you just used was problematic because let's say I spent two hours here And I still want to make my comment, but I submitted both because I knew I had to go. And now I'm on my way to my night job. And now I'm making my comment via Zoom. So maybe the idea is if you're here in person, we're only going to honor your in-person, your comment card. We're not going to give you a separate one.

That would mean that they would need to know all of these people. And perhaps they do because there's a regular, you know. Right, yeah. Yeah, some, but she may not, I mean, they may not know everybody who's doing this or there could be people that are confused or, you know, once again, they're leaving the same. I mean, like the advice I got from CSBA when I went to the training, for some reason, we got into this long discussion about public comment and they were just like, you know what, just let everybody speak. Don't risk it. So I was just being very. accommodating and reminding people like, Oh, you didn't submit a public comment card in the future. Yes, you may make them in the future. Please submit a card. You know, like, I would just be in this reminder mode, rather than the risk of being cut off public comment.

Does it help, though, if, if there was a shift, and it was clearly stated in the bylaws, that the focus is on the folks who are in person, and that you exhaust the in-person list and then shift to Zoom? He's the lawyer. I'm just looking at the board.

I know this is something that has been a challenge this year.

Is it that we focus on the folks who are in-person and present and then shift to taking off the people who have already spoken and that remaining Zoom group is that group? And then it's also maybe a shift to, and do we do a review webinar? If we shift it to webinar and asking people to actually register and have a piece where they can, if they plan on public comment, then they can also submit. And that's something that, you know, is a required thing, which item are you, And it's required for what this is about.

The form won't go through unless you indicate what you're actually going to be talking about or you're going to put the number. I'm open to all those things, I think, but I'd like to see it in your bylaws and not necessarily done on the fly.

We can put a best practice in bylaws.

And I think the bylaws should reflect on what you just said because my now right is that hey, I have special needs and I have accommodations and I can't show up to the meeting and now you're putting me at the end of the agenda because I am in a place where I can't be there in person. So just if I may.

Yeah. I mean, no, thank you. I mean, I really appreciate the conversation. I think that I've had this conversation on this board almost every year for the last six years. I think that public comment in this district is a huge challenge. Like, board meetings have always ran to one in the morning here. Like even before most of us got on the board, we've been in these spaces. I think that every time we have tried to change, overcome it, we have always gone back to just leaving it open because to your point, like we have always valued community boys. And I think as hard as it is for all of us to be there at 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, like we all know that, especially every single person here either volunteers or works the next day or has to take care of their home, right? Like There's so many challenges to come with it or have to go to work at seven in the morning to do what we just talked about the night before. Like changing things to become tighter and to limit what we're coming. I have always seen it as backfiring on the board. So I think that it's more about like repetition of our procedures. Like, please make sure you're signing up for the item that you want to comment. If not, then we just let them. But then also I think that's something we don't do enough is leveraging our relationships with the groups that come. Because really the problem is not the one-off people who come and make the comment for the first time or who come by a different subject. It's like, for example, when one of the union comes with 100 people and have 100 comments on the same thing or someone comes to make a comment on study trips with 30 people. It's like, okay, we get it. Study trips are important, right? So I think it's more of leveraging those Relationships being like, Hey, we see there's 200 of you. Like we understand the messaging you're trying to make, but you choose 10 people to make your message heard and have those people be those, both the people who are speaking and behavior is I think that actually backfires a lot of times because one we're exhausted after three hours. Right. Or two, like we're upset at that point for being yelled at by 200 people on the same subject. Right. So I think that maybe leveraging those relationships would get us further. than us trying to limit people from speaking because I don't think that that will be, I mean, I've seen boards where it's like 25 minutes of public comment, right? Like that's it, that's all you get. Whoever signed up, signed up and period, right? And I think in those spaces, people really resent their boards, right? And like they don't feel like it's an open space for them. So I don't know, I just wanted to make a comment that I feel like we have tried extremes When we first joined the board, right, we had a board president who tried extremes, right, like, but we're going to be at the end of the meeting. Like, you only get 10 people to speak, right? And, like, we hated that, right? I think most of us did. Like, so I think that we just got to, in my opinion, try our best to And like, this might be an action you take, but it's maybe not the most effective way for you to get your message across to the board than either meeting with us or having just a specific number of folks.

There have been times, I can't exactly recall, but if a group was angry, I have said to them something like, you're all welcome to speak on your own and come up and we can all do public comment. But it might be more effective if you choose a speaker and you all come up together and stand together in solidarity. I think I have said that on occasion.

And I think it's going to take a shift from before, right? I think my only concern is that, yes, I agree people are going to be upset by not doing their public comment, but they're even more upset when we don't get to finish the job that we were put up there to do. So it's like one or the other, they're going to be upset. And then we have things that then have to be shifted over to the next, you know, date because we have board members that do have to come home and can't, you know, if we were all to agree, like we're going to do three hours of public comment, whatever it is, but then we're also going to sit here and get through our whole agenda, no matter what time that is, then yes. But I think we have to also find a median ground with the board. to say, hey, you know, we're going to have to make some moves because we do want to hear and it's going to take leveraging from the superintendent to be able to address the big groups, I think, there and say, hey, now is the board going to be willing to have maybe a one-on-one or with the superintendent of meeting her have the flexibility to be like, hey, if you guys are wanting to talk about this and there's 300 people here because We're also talking about coming from spaces where we've learned to organize, right? You come in the masses and you're not willing to bring 300 people and have 10 people sleep. So how could we make it easier for them to be heard without having to be heard that minute? So just throwing it out there for the board all night, what are some of those shifts that we're willing to make and some of the accommodations that we as a board are willing to take on to hear everyone's public comment that night. And then we can move on.

It's challenging. And it does put a heavy burden on staff to police, you know, kind of what the public comments are going to be. And then to the extent you really want your community to have an opportunity, and then maybe you create some fairways. If over 20 people, it automatically will be one minute for everybody. Or if over 30 people, it'll be one minute for everybody. Because this idea, maybe you guys look at something and say, One hour, max of public comment. That's about what we want to do. Or maybe that's 45 minutes or maybe it's 30 minutes because you do have to weigh your agenda. So I'll move on because I do think I'm going long.

All of those things, we can make all of that or none of that happen.

That's where our government, the separate government. Yeah. Okay, so.

So we could just discuss it, bring it to the board, and be like, okay, so these are the options, just like we did with the Catholic Pinterest. These are some choices. What do you want to do? Yeah.

Okay. All right. So getting back to maybe the substance of the comments, we cannot prohibit public criticism about policies, procedures, programs. I think really even your performance as a board member. There was a comment made earlier, which is, you know, we just end up getting tired of getting yelled at. That is the job, right? That's the gig. And so as long as you understand that as a member of the public, people will criticize you. They're going to say things that aren't true. They may call you corrupt. They may say things that I think in a normal scenario, if you weren't a member of the board, you would feel very offended and you'd want to respond. As a board member, you have to accept that that's part of your job. Now, they don't get to threaten you. They don't get to do certain things. They don't get to be wildly offensive. But again, I had a big situation down in Vendura where there were a lot of problematic comments that were being made. And so the board president was really invested a lot of time trying to, you know, can I go after this comment or can I do this and do that? In the end, the board member just kind of, or the board president kind of making it live a little bit longer and longer. In the end, sometimes it's better to let that person run through the comment. And then when they're done, remind the rest of the public. here are the rules for making comments, and you're free to have critiques, you're free to make comments about people, but you shouldn't be offensive, you shouldn't threaten people.

And how do we manage, I think even our board wanting to retaliate, or once we get public comment, having a board address some concerns that were brought up from public comment?

Well, first things first, I don't think the moment is usually the right place to do that. And so what I mean is somebody just kind of got up, said something very inflammatory, right? And about, you know, board member Villegas. They just, they came right at me. For me to then respond in the moment is probably not the best thing. And number one, if I'm not the board president, I don't think I should be the one really running the meeting anyways, right? I would ask the board president for the right to speak. And if I'm the board president, I might say, We're not going to address that comment. To the extent that, you know, as part of your board member report that you feel like you need to make some kind of announcement, you're welcome to do so. We're not going to waste more time by digging into personal back and forth. So I think the board president, unfortunately, has a lot of pressure to kind of make sure that the meeting is moving on in the right place. But if I were counseling board members, I would say, you have to put that poker face on and that's kind of the game. You ran for office, you won, and now you are there for that criticism. Even if it's completely unfair and even if it's really offensive, you know, chances are, you know, it's better just to move with it and not to spend too much time on it.

So the issue about a slur during public comment has been brought up in the past. And I think that there's obviously nuance to specifically the slurge because a bad word that we would consider a bad word, my understanding is that we cannot stop the public comment from continuing. We just have to let them know, hey, please, watch what you're saying, there's kids listening or whatever, but a slur, like let's say for example, the N word being said, like we can't stop public comment in those situations, correct? Like the board president can say, but what would your recommendation be to another board member to be able to step in and support the board president in that specific moment, especially if the comment is towards the board president or towards the superintendent or something like that, right? Like a few years ago, we had someone say a racial slur, I guess, sorry, I should specify, towards the superintendent. Like, what can we do in those specific cases?

First things first, I wouldn't want your board president to be out there on their own trying to figure out how best to weigh into a situation. And this is where I come back to the bylaws. I would want to make sure that my bylaws have addressed this and have thought about when you have people who are offensive or trying to interrupt the meeting, they're potentially threatening comments. So I would want the bylaws to reflect that so that any board president, whoever it is, has a script, has a formula in how to respond. And that's one of the biggest challenges is the board president looking at the bylaws, I don't really know what to do. Maybe legal's in the room, maybe they're not. And here's the other piece is when you formalize it and you put it in the bylaw, you now can have legal take a look at it and say, to the extent that there's free expression issues, limited public forum issues, we're not doing something that shuts down, is illegal. We're doing something that complements the law. So what I'm saying is get your whole board together, get some bylaw language that potentially addresses the situation, then have legal vetted to make sure you're in a good place. Now, as you get into that, now there will be some judgment calls, right? So there will be a decision where the board president has to decide, do I wanna call this out right here in the moment? And then potentially get into a back and forth where I'm getting into it with a member of the public and they're yelling and then we're telling staff to kind of cut off their mic. That's gonna turn it into a whole mess, right? or do when they're soon as they're done, and I have this exact situation come up, as soon as they're done, then the board president said, I want to remind everybody in board bylaw 1234 that prohibits racial comments or prohibits A, B, and C, and these things, offensive comments, potentially threatening comments, and these will not be permitted. So I want to caution the public to refrain from these types of comments. That way, the board president is not going rogue and just enforcing their rules. The board president is enforcing the rules of the board. That that help on now that's not something you get to overnight that's something that takes investment in time and governance and looking into board violence and potentially we will review to make sure you're doing in the right way yeah.

Well, I think, between a policy and between some scripting and some maybe even some decision charting that that could get. Not perfect, but better yeah pressure yeah I remember on one of the first.

You know, big forums I did were, I think it was like a DAC meeting, maybe an ELAC, you know, and this lady came to the mic and we're two minutes into it. And I was trying to deal with the point of order and kind of Robert's rules. And, you know, she had a nice hat on and came down to the microphone, looked like a really nice lady. And she said, I know what the problem is, everybody. I know what the problem is. Mr. Villegas is racist. You know, and then she like dropped the mic and the whole room blew up. And we just had to move on from that. They didn't know me. I had been there for two minutes. The meeting had just started. But refraining from responding kept the meeting on track. So that was my role for that day. All right. Closed sessions. And I'm going to move a little faster because I know you guys have other business. I don't want to keep you here all day. Bottom line, closed session can only be for things that are authorized under the Brown Act or the education code. It's probably one of the more frequent calls that we get from superintendents and staff. How do we agendize it? What should this look like? The quick answer is there's a really clear listing of closed session exceptions. If you don't see it there, chances are you shouldn't be talking about it in closed session. So one of the trickier things is boards often want to take matters that they don't want to talk about in public and move it into closed session. If it doesn't fit one of these things, I would say don't do that. You're going to need to have the pain of having the conversation in open session. If it can go there, you know, then it can go there. But keep in mind, if you're voting on something and you get challenged by the public, then it leads to the potential that that vote is null and void because it shouldn't have been a closed session in the first place. So just keep that in mind. All right. Personnel matters. That's typically one of the easiest ones that go into closed session. But if you're going to talk about specific complaints for charges against an employee, you have to give them Brown Act notice and then 24-hour notice. And then they have the right to have the complaints and charges heard in open session. So I won't – yeah, I won't – every once in a while you get somebody who's like, yes, please air my dirty laundry in open session. And then what they don't realize is that doesn't mean the board is going to deliberate in front of them in open session. That just means somebody is going to read it and say, okay. This is all the stuff that, you know, John Smith wants to be heard and have right out in open session. They did this. They did that. Now, now that this has been heard in open session, the board will now go to closed session to deliberate, just like they always do on a personnel actionable. So something to keep in mind. OK, let's keep moving to pending litigation. This is probably one of the biggest ones that gets legal in the room. So you'll see conference with legal counsel as pending litigation, existing litigation against the district. anticipated litigation, and then if you're deciding whether or not you're going to sue somebody, deciding whether to initiate litigation. Student matters. There's very few things I hang my hat on in the education code, but usually student privacy is one of them. I always feel very righteous. If we are protecting student privacy, we will go to Supreme Court and back to protect student privacy. So if you're talking about a student issue, that's something that, you know, in virtually every single example that I can think of would be done in closed session. The student will not be identified. All right. I don't think I'm going the wrong way. So I'll go the right way and we'll keep moving. Student matters, we talked about. The expulsions are a little bit, little different. Final action to expel a student has to be taken in an open session. Oftentimes, the board is still going to deliberate on some of the details. So you'll have education staff will come in, talk about the expulsion. Okay, great. And when we go into open, we're going to take our vote. Again, you're still not disclosing student names. Negotiations are also a little bit different. The EERA permits the school board to meet in closed session to talk about negotiations without agendizing it. What I see virtually every board I work with still agendizes it. under personnel or labor negotiations. So if you guys are not agendizing it because you have the exception, that's fine. I also know a lot of boards that still put on their concrete labor negotiator to get an update. So no judgment either way about how you guys do that. Just depends on what the style of the board is. All right. One thing, if you're getting close to getting a deal, there are some exceptions where if we need to get directions from the board, you can pull the board members if you're in the middle of a labor situation. So just know all of that is unacceptable under the Brown Act. Security matters. So again, you don't see this one very often, but if you had to get to discuss a threat about some specific threat to water, drinking water, things like that, that can be an exception that gets you into closed session. That one is kind of obscure. Real property negotiations are a little bit more common. So if you need to tell the negotiators what the price in terms of payment are going to be, then you certainly can do that in closed session. What you shouldn't be doing in closed session is just talking about all your properties and saying, you know, which one should we sell? Should we do this? What should we offer? I think that is something that probably that discussion needs to be in open session. So if you need to schedule a Saturday special meeting to talk about all the properties, if you're looking at selling or converting something, do that part in open session. When you get into the real negotiation, but make sure it's real negotiation, that conversation can be in closed session. All right. So closed session agendas, you have to identify it on what you're going to go, what the exception is going to be, has to be identified on the agenda. One thing I'll throw out there is a lot of boards will have what they call standing items. That's not really the intent of the Brown Act. So if you have something, let's say the personnel exception is a common standing item, what I would caution is if you intend to talk about a personnel issue, then that's appropriate to have on there. But it shouldn't be an umbrella item that now we can just throw any personnel issue that we want to talk about. Because when you made that personnel exception, you really weren't talking about John Smith. You actually were going to go in about James Smith. But just be careful there that it might be an unintended kind of Brown Act violation. Now, It's something that probably won't come out in the wash. But just keep in mind, standing items are not exactly what the Brown Act intended. All right. I'm going to keep moving. Report out requirements. So after that closed session, if you took a vote, you have to report out unless the final approval rests with another party or disclosure with hampered initiation or defensive litigation. There's a difference in my mind between the superintendent needing to move forward on some kind of matter in closed session and looking for a consensus from the board. Is there a consensus on how we're going to proceed in the immediate future? That is not something that necessarily needs to be reported out because no vote is taking place. I'm just looking to my board. I'm the superintendent. I'm giving a very sensitive and confidential personnel update to the board. And this issue is not going to be resolved. It's not going to be done. I'm looking, I'm updating the board. Maybe it's a one-way update. I'm just telling the board. Or it didn't give me any direction. Maybe it is an issue that's going to be ongoing. And I got a consensus from the board on how I'm going to proceed. That's not something that's being reported out. Now, if the board is voting on something, now there's an actual vote. That vote needs to be tallied. That vote needs to be reported out later. Unless there is an exception in the law. There is a few of them. There's an exception in the law for teacher dismissals. There's an exception in the law for, say, for example, if a settlement agreement, right, the board approves the terms of the settlement agreement, but the other party hasn't signed. So if there's nothing final happening, no report out is necessary. So just keep in mind there's some nuances when it comes to reporting out from closed session. All right. That's the exception I talked about with personnel matters. I think that's the first one you see. The agreements, all those things, and student matters, no information shall be released in violation of student privacy rights. I'm going to keep moving because I'm probably past my time now. We talked about real estate negotiators and litigation. I'm going to keep going. Let's get into confidentiality. So bottom line.

Yeah, it takes a while. Okay. Okay.

So I'm on 53 confidentiality here, so I'm hoping it's going to catch up. I'm on 51. Okay. All right. So bottom line, board members are prohibited from disclosing information that was obtained during closed session, except to people who are authorized to get that information. Now keep in mind, let's talk about the budget, right? So if you're having trouble sleeping at night, you know, read a school district budget. That will knock you out pretty quickly. I'm not a numbers guy, clearly. So, you know, budgets are things that can be a little tedious to read. And so just because you took the budget into closed session and talked about things in the budget doesn't now mean the entire budget is something that is closed session confidentiality, closed session confidential. The budget is the budget, right? So we have to divide between information that was obtained in closed session that is actually confidential information versus information that's already public. Now that can be kind of tricky sometimes, but if it's already public, that is not closed session confidential. What could be confidential in closed session is what the board plans to do about something. That typically is what is confidential. So it's the what and the how that you're gonna address something.

So when you violate closed session confidentiality, I'm not going to continue.

OK, I'm going to continue.

OK, and that is the meaning of life. So liability for disclosing confidential information. Just remember, board members can be personally liable if they violate closed session confidentiality and could potentially be removed from office. It's a serious offense and it's something that the local district attorney will investigate if there's been a complaint.

keep in mind um i'm going to stop there so that we have a little bit of time for questions and i'm going to stop sharing the presentation okay i have some questions in the in the sake of time but we'll try to be brief um so just to go back over if you have a standing committee two members are appointed if one is uh two members are appointed to be permanents Can you appoint an alternative?

I think we talked about there being an alternate, and because it's a standing committee, because it's been agendized, and it's going to be part of a normal meeting, that's not an issue with sending an alternate.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Okay, so for ad hoc committees appointed for a certain length of time, can you have an alternate?

I think our preference would be not to have an alternate because you don't want to swap in and out the members of an ad hoc committee because they're private meetings. They're not open to the public. And then that leads to the potential where, okay, if I'm the first two members and I know A, B, and C is going this way on the particular topic, now if a third member comes in, there's a potential that we're creating a serial meeting around an ad hoc committee.

Okay, next is late. We have liaisons. So what we'll do is we'll be like, I'll have committee. Okay, you're, you're going to be the expert, you know, you're going to follow, you know, all that. Usually a point to Two people showing up for this or is it one. Hey, I'm sick. You go.

Are these the ad hoc committees.

They're liaisons. They're just their parent committees. So I'm a committee forward you from legal counsel.

Yeah. yeah I think. In my mind, if you have two people who are assigned to the media, I would encourage both people to attend it's all. Well, if both are they both are assigned or not an alternate right yeah.

Right well I haven't been going because I thought it was the alternate.

I think it's at this point, I think it's no harm no foul, but is this an ad hoc committee.

No, they're not. The LCAP committee is not. It's like a standing committee because they meet. But they are not board appointed. They are not board appointed except for DLI is not required. But like MDAC. We assign a board liaison to MDAC to be familiar with what's going on in that committee, have an understanding.

I would double check to see whether or not you truly are an alternate. And so if you're an alternate, then it sounds like the system is working the way it should and the person who's named has been going. But if you have two people who are named as liaisons to a particular committee or a meeting that's taking place, then I would have both people go.

Okay. So we do officially do that in January. Okay. Who wants to be the board president may make a recommendation. We talk about it. I want this. I want this. You do this. You do that. And then we approve it. So it is an official action by the board of assignments.

That's right. And we're not changing that mid-year. And all I'm suggesting is go back to how we set it up in January and double check our notes. If we had two people assigned to that committee, most people should be attending.

Okay.

Then... Can we follow up on that and see if it's okay? I think the challenge with that is that unlike board committees in which any of us could observe. We've been told by the council for those committees, we can't go observe. Did you have an opinion on that piece at all?

I think, and let's use the example where if you have two liaisons, right? So two liaisons are assigned to this meeting that's taking place. I think it makes sense that your third person does not go because now you just hit a majority of the board. So I agree with that because now you're, and it's connected to district business. I'm not sure exactly what the topics are, but there's enough of a connection that you have now potentially have a Brown Act issue. And if you don't have a specific Brown Act issue, you have the perception that there's a majority of the board here. So I used an example earlier where I said, If I'm rolling into this meeting, let's say I got an invite from a member of the community. I can't remember what happened in January. So I'm not thinking about that necessarily. And all of a sudden I log into a Zoom and I see that there's already two board members and I make three. I might say, you know what? Good to see everybody. I'm going to go ahead and log out because I see a couple of my fellow board members here. It's probably better if I log out to, you know, as this, you know, we don't want to make it a Brown Act meeting. And so something as simple as that. Does that help? Yeah.

So just a recommendation to the board on that sheet that we do in January. I think that better titles of what we're doing. This is a standing committee. This is an ad hoc committee. These are lay zones and then the bylaws would better reflect the heat and it might be clearer. So that's just one idea. Question on supporting materials on your agenda. You are not required to include supporting materials, correct? Are there any times when you must have?

It's correct that you're not required. There's not a specific Brown Act requirement that you have to have whatever the supporting material is there agendized. Most boards I work with try to do that. They try to have all that material up there. But there's sometimes something's not ready. It hasn't happened. So I think the disconnect for me is the board has to have what it's voting on. And so you want to make sure that the board is actually looking at, let's say it's a settlement agreement. Let's say it's something like that. If the board doesn't actually have it, what are they voting on, right? So I think that the it has to exist. Now there's other Brown Act provisions and PRA provisions that talk about if the board is given something within 72 hours, then that has to be made available either online or at the district office. And it has to be made promptly available online. So to your point, there's not a specific Brown Act requirement that supporting material has to be agendized, but if the board is voting on it, then I would say the board has to have a copy. And if the board has a copy, then that needs to be made public. So keep that in mind.

Just going back to Trustee Reckler's questions around the clarification of committee assignments, should that be reflected in, so for clarifying, making it more clear, should that be reflected in the handbook? in our government's handbook as well as in our bylaws, or is it just the handbook?

I don't like it being a handbook. I haven't reviewed your bylaws to see if you guys have a huge description of every committee, and if you don't, I would not necessarily upjump it to a bylaw. I think it sounds like handbook business where you have a discussion of committees, maybe even have a quick summary of what we've talked about because this isn't the easiest stuff to get in one or two bites. So I like the idea of your handbook having some of the basic rules of Brown Act here's the standing committees we have, here's the ad hoc committees we have, here's the liaison appointments we have, and something that clarifies that and what the expectations are for board members.

So to answer that, we just did, we're just, we're updating everything right now. CSBA had a pretty good layout in the committee policy of who does what in this, and we expanded it with little bit more on the descriptive side because we had gotten some legal counsel and so we were like, okay, let's put this in because we got it. So it is in the policy. It is also in the governance handbook, but as we go through, we should probably better align. But we have a better, it's clearer now.

That makes sense. And we love CSBA. And here's the other thing. When you do something that CSBA is doing, it's not a protection against all things. And that's why legal is always going to be around the edges to help you tailor your materials. But the good news of it is you're moving with the body of board members who are doing it. You don't necessarily want to be a pioneer. in doing certain things with the Brown Act and certain things with the board. It's nice to go with CSBA because you know other boards are gonna follow suit. So it's always a good example, a good starting point.

May I interrupt for a second and ask a clarifying question? When you're talking about meetings, so the way that this spreadsheet is in January, it says appointments, then it says liaises, Sorry, I muted myself. It says appointment, says the name of the district committee, then it says district committee liaisons, and then it says appointment, and then it says alternate, says ALT for alternate. Some of these meetings that are under these district committees are open to the public, most of them are. For example, you have the CAC, which is our community advisory committee around special education. It is publicized on the district website. It's on the calendar. It is an open meeting to the public because it's an open meeting to the public. That means that board members may attend. But to your point, they go back to the very first thing you said when we were having this type of conversation, which is you don't speak. You don't speak. You don't ask questions. You stay silent. Is that accurate? Am I am I following what you're saying?

think so and I don't have the full context of all the lists of all the liaisons that you have but but I don't think I need it I what I hear you saying is there are public meetings and if there's a public meeting does the board member forego all the rights of being a member of the public of course they don't but to the point that I made at the very beginning is if a board member is attending something as a member of the public then they should refrain from speaking they should make it clear that they are not there as a member um representing the board but they have to be careful because again the perception of a Brown Act violation can be just as wasteful as an actual violation.

I don't want to contradict you, but that's not what legal counsel told us. Two different firms told us that for, for example, CAC or the LCAP, only the appointed board members may attend. Otherwise, the Brown Act violation, because of the changes to the Brown Act that happened in January, I guess. So I think that it's just a difference of what we call them.

I think that's where I'm getting bogged down because I don't have them all in front of me. And so I agree with those opinions that you got, that there are some meetings where they should not go because they aren't actually appointed to it. So I would need probably to see all those together before kind of opining on it. I don't want to give something so general that gives the board kind of different advice.

But I just want to make clear to all of us here, that's why the board president sent that email to all of us, that we have to be really conscious that if it's a CAC meeting, only the appointed people should go. If not, what we've told staff is that the appointed board member will ask staff to kick you off. Because we can't blindly ignore the Brown Act because others will be complying with a potential illegal action. So I think that we just have to all be clear that if you show up to one of those And you're not. Unfortunately, you will be kicked out because you're not a member of the public in those meetings.

Yeah, I think this ties in with what we're talking about with the governor's handbook. Right. This is where we want that clarity.

Excuse me for one second. I think we also need to be clear that if it's a if it's a Brown Act committee that has been agendized and it's for public consumption, then all members of the public, whether elected or not, if you are a member of the public, then you have access to attend that meeting. But as a board member in your elected capacity, you cannot speak. Is that not accurate or that's where you're getting the variant opinions?

Yeah, that's not accurate, Trustee Smith-Holtz. That's where we got two different opinions on that you are not allowed to attend, even if it's a Brown Act committee by the parents. It's not a board-led committee. which is the difference of the Brown Act change. Listen, I don't care if we all attend, like we've always attended, it's not our thing, but now that we've been told legally we cannot do it, we cannot ignore it.

Any other questions?

I think you guys have already gotten legal opinions on this. And so I'm not trying to hear to give you anything that's different. I think what I will recognize is that it's nuanced. And so if the board doesn't have clear direction on what to do, say, for example, in the government handbook, there is going to be I think mistakes in interpretation on does this apply to me? Does this not? Am I the alternate or am I not? Should I attend this or should I not?

And it comes to perception, too. Wording matters. So if it's the perception of the Brown Act looks like it could be violated, perception is different than you may. You are not allowed to attend. So I think all of the clarity is around the language. And I think if you go to 15 different lawyers, you'll get 15 different opinions. I think that that is because of the language. I think that the way that and I guess it would be. It's easily more available for you to give us an opinion if you saw the document that we're speaking of, but the documents that we're speaking of, it says one liaison and then it says an alternate, right? Alternate. And that's not for all. That's not for all of the committees. One committee. Some committees just have one person assigned to them with no alternate. That's blank. Right. Right. So then if another board member goes, then that board member would not be in violation of the Brown Act. It's only two people there and it doesn't look like it's three people there. So I think, again, perception is key. Also, is there something in the Brown Act, either current or past? And I'm thinking more current. Is there something in the Brown Act that says if you have three people there and the first two talk, those are the only two that can talk. Correct. Because if a third person comes in and talks, that creates a board discussion. that creates a board meeting, is that accurate or not accurate?

I don't know that it's just the mere talking. I think we're going to get lost in some of the minutiae between standing versus ad hoc versus liaisons. And so at 1120, I don't know that we want to keep diving deeper into that. Hold on. I'm sorry. There was a comment here.

No, I just had a comment. And I think the clarification, because there are some committees that don't have an alternate. And that was due to the assignment where we did go to choose. who was going to be the liaison or alternate. Some committees only had a liaison because there was no one to take on the capacity of alternate. So those potentially committees are still open to an alternate if a board member chooses to be an alternate on those committees. The ones that do have alternates, we were told by legal that those are the two only that are able to step into the meeting. There's other committees that because we were already pulled really thin. They didn't get an alternate. They only got a liaison.

And the only thing I would add to that is the board would still need to name that alternate. I don't think somebody should say, I'm going to go be an alternate at this meeting today.

Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. There's committees that don't have alternates, so a board member could still choose to say, hey, I want to be an alternate on this committee and be the one represented because there are spaces that we didn't have enough, you know,

enough participation to fill those spaces. And I think that should be brought to the board at a regular meeting and the board could potentially take action on that or next January, the issue could be addressed. Yeah.

Okay.

Well, okay. Any other, I shouldn't say any other questions because I think we've gone long enough.

No more public comment, right?

So, but thank you everybody. It was a pleasure to work with you and I hope to see you guys again. Thank you. That was helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, we'll take a five-minute break, brother.

Rebecca. I'm sorry.

Okay, so welcome back everyone, we are now moving on to closed session at 1131am and we will come back to open session at 2pm.

Thank you.