RESOLUTION FOR PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF MEETING DOCUMENTS USING THE INTERNET

WHEREAS, the Ralph M. Brown Act, enacted in 1953 by the California State Legislature in an effort to safeguard the public's right to access and participate in government meetings within the State, has proven to be an important foundation to facilitate citizens' involvement in government.

WHEREAS, the Brown Act was enacted long before the advent of the Internet and the availability of web-based access to documents, video recordings, and other media, and has not been updated to embrace these new technologies; the availability of storage for documents is essentially free and unlimited, and videos of proceedings can be streamed live and archived for later viewing.

AND WHEREAS, government bodies frequently use the outdated Brown Act provisions to obfuscate their meeting information, providing only titles of agenda items and no resolutions or ordinances on their web site, thereby forcing citizens to request (and pay for) photocopies; those bodies routinely consolidate nearly all agenda items into a single massive consent calendar, thereby not discussing the items or even reading the titles during the meetings; they routinely approve skipping the required readings of ordinances, ordinances that are not available online and therefore get little if any public scrutiny.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Democratic Party of the State of California hereby asserts that to more fully involve the public in governmental proceedings, complete agendas and meeting minutes, including full texts of resolutions, ordinances, acts, findings, and decisions, should be available on the publicly available web sites for all state and local bodies that also comply with the Ralph M. Brown Act.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Ralph M. Brown Act shall be reviewed with an eye toward embracing the Internet and the Worldwide Web, with a set of voluntary guidelines for all bodies that would otherwise be obligated to comply with the Ralph M. Brown Act, such that those bodies can more easily evaluate their compliance with modern standards of disclosure, and include the use of Web Sites, E-Mail distribution, video and audio streaming and archival.

Respectfully submitted,

Raymond Lutz
77th AD Delegate
President, East County Democratic Club
Alternate, San Diego County Democratic Central Committee

• Citizens' Oversight Projects, Endorsed
• San Diego County Democratic Party Central Committee, endorsed by unanimous vote on July 12th, 2007.

-- Raymond Lutz - 25 Apr 2007

• WebAgendas.pdf: Paper version of the Resolution