Another Cease and Desist for Brown Act Violations on Chico City Council

Sep 22

When the Chico City Council met last Tuesday, they voted to disband the Climate Action Commission. The problem? (Okay, well one of the problems)

That wasn’t on the Agenda.

When the Chico City Council voted on a motion by Sean Morgan to “make that [Climate Action] Commission an ad hoc committee,” it was a violation of the Brown Act.

The listed agenda item was to appoint members to the Climate Action Committee; nowhere on the agenda did it suggest initiating action to alter the committee in any way, thus depriving the public of the chance to speak on a council action.

In fact, this council has so often violated the Brown Act that one of their biggest supporters recently sent them a cease and desist reiterating a violation we notified them of earlier in the year and adding several more instances.

We have once again sent a cease and desist, and this time we are also noting the pattern of behavior. The public deserves to have council actions properly agendized, and to have the opportunity to comment on them.

There are both civil and criminal penalties for this behavior. We hope the council will finally acknowledge and rectify this issue once and for all without the need for additional action.

You can read a pdf of the document here.