Subject: Kate Smith Arrested at SBSD School Board Meeting

(Read from bottom up)

Subject:Terry Francke email From:Terry [mailto:terry@calaware.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 11:51 AM
To: Karolyn Renard


Dear Karolyn,

By definition, a meeting at the attorney's office would be a special meeting for Brown Act purposes. And as you can see, a special meeting may be adjourned to a later time, but only once a quorum of the body has assembled to adjourn it.  In the case of a regular meeting for which no members show up, the clerk or secretary (normally the superintendent in the school board context) may declare the meeting adjourned and notice the time and place to which the body will convene, but this does not apply to a special meeting or it would have been so specified.

To repeat, special meetings may be adjourned by the body, but if the body does not show up at all, only a regular meeting may be adjourned clerically. The only options left for that circumstance would be to post a new notice of special meeting at least 24 hours in the future, or wait until the next regular meeting.

The criminal treatment of this incident seems entirely unlawful, since one cannot "trespass" on property designated by law as the forum for a public meeting, especially when no lawful procedure has been pursued to remove or cancel that designation.

Has this been reported in the press?

Terry Francke

Title 5: 54955 (Ed. note: "Adjourn" means "adjourn or delay to a later time")
The legislative body of a local agency may adjourn any regular, adjourned regular, special or adjourned special meeting to atime and place specified in the order of adjournment. Less than a quorum may so adjourn from time to time. If all members are absent from any regular or adjourned regular meeting, the clerk or secretary of the legislative body may declare the meeting adjourned to a stated time and place and he shall cause a written notice of the adjournment to be given in the same manner as provided in Section 54956 for special meetings, unless such notice is waived as provided for special meetings. A copy of the order or notice of adjournmentshall be conspicuously posted on or near the door of the place where the regular, adjourned regular, special or adjourned special meeting was held within 24 hours after the time of the adjournment. When a regular or adjourned regular meeting is adjourned as provided in this section, the resulting adjourned regular meeting is a regular meeting for all purposes. When an order of adjournment of any meeting fails to state the hour at which the adjourned meeting is to beheld, it shall be held at the hour specified for regular meetings by ordinance, resolution, bylaw, or other rule.

On Nov 16, 2011, at 10:28 AM,

Karolyn Renard wrote: Hi Terry,  I have what I hope will be a quickly-answered Brown Act question that I have not seen addressed anywhere.

The situation:  A person went to a noticed and agendized School Board meeting (one that, appallingly, was held at the downtown office of the School Board’s attorney, an attorney from a contracted private law firm).  The person showed up for the meeting, 15 minutes before it was to start.  The office staff told her the meeting time had been changed to later in the day and that she had to leave or they would call the police.  There was no claim that the time changed was due to an emergency of any sort. There was no other member of the public there.  She told them that she wanted to stay until the Board came and hear them formally cancel the meeting themselves, if they were in fact going to.  She had planned to speak at Public Comment.  They called the police on her – the police arrested her and the DA has charged her with trespassing.

The School Board is aware of what happened, although I don’t think they were present at the time. I would guess that she had a right to be there because they can’t just cancel a noticed/agendized meeting without good cause (an emergency), especially without even convening the meeting to announce the time change  (and probably, at minimum, would they have to have Public Comment since the meeting had been noticed/agendized?) .  I would also think they would have to formally re-notice and re-agendize the new meeting instead of just going ahead with it later that day, which is what they did.

Am I right?

Best Wishes, 

Karolyn Renard