EDITORIAL

In recent weeks, the Costa Mesa City Council has faced a variety of

charges from residents that it violated the state’s open-meetings law

during the controversial Home Ranch project negotiations and when members

called an emergency, closed-door session to discuss a contract with the

Costa Mesa Police Assn.

The Home Ranch charges thus far appear the more serious, as the

district attorney is looking into whether repeated meetings between a

city committee -- comprising two council members and two planning

commissioners -- and representatives of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons violated

the Brown Act. The key point here is whether that city committee had

negotiating authority over the project and therefore had to notify the

public about its meetings.

At this point, absolutely no formal charges have been filed against

the city -- an important point to reinforce. But it is equally important

to remember how imperative it is that public agencies, including but not

limited to city councils and school boards, adhere to the state’s

open-meetings law.

The act itself -- named for its sponsor, Assemblyman Ralph M. Brown --

became law in 1953 after a newspaper series detailed the frequency of

secret, closed-door meetings at all levels of government in California.

Over the years, court decisions augmented the law, the Legislature has

made its own changes and major revisions were made in 1994.

The rationale behind the law is simple: “[B]oards and councils and the

other public agencies in this state exist to aid in the conduct of the

people’s business,” the law reads. “It is the intent of the law that

their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted

openly.

“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the

agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not

give their public servants their right to decide what is good for the

people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist

on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the

instruments they have created.”

Even minor transgressions of the act jeopardize the public’s business

and control of its servants, who work for us on matters both large and

small. It is not a law with blurry edges, but one that must be held firm

to maintain the public’s trust in its government.

That trust is sacrosanct. And it is why Costa Mesa’s possible

violations to be investigated and why the Daily Pilot will continue to

ensure all meeting doors are open.