Charles Halpern Letter to the Attorney General

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

I am writing to request you to take action pursuant to your duties under the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, Sec. 11130(a). I request you to take such steps as are necessary to prevent a meeting in violation of the Act-- the meeting of the Citizen's Independent Oversight Committee scheduled for December 17. In addition, I request you to determine if an attempt was made to build a consensus in advance of the meeting on issues that were properly the public's business and therefore should have been deliberated at the meeting, with full public participation.

As you know the voters of California passed a historic amendment to the California Constitution less than six weeks ago. Proposition 59, now enshrined in the Constitution, reaffirms the right of the people to participate actively about the conduct of the people's business; in particular, it states that the "meetings of public bodies… shall be open to public scrutiny" and that a statute implementing that policy "shall be broadly construed if it furthers the people's right of access, and narrowly construed if...