City Council
Report
City Council Meeting: March 14, 2023
Agenda Item: 11.A
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To: Mayor and City Council
From: Denise Anderson Warren, City Clerk, Records and Election Services Department
Subject: Adoption of a Resolution Amending the Policies for Board and Commission Recommended Action
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1. Adopt a resolution amending the Policies for City Boards, Commissions, Committees, Task Forces, and Regional Advisory Boards, and repealing Resolution No. 11396 (CCS) and
2. Consider an attendance policy regarding board/commission members attending meetings via teleconferencing rules under the Brown Act.
Summary
Beginning March 1, 2023, all City of Santa Monica boards and commissions resumed in-person public meetings as a result of Governor Newsom sunsetting the COVID-19 state of emergency orders effective February 28, 2023. This creates an opportune time to review the current policies governing boards, commissions, committees, task forces, and regional advisory boards and propose amendments to provide clarification of existing practices and ensure consistency with applicable Council Rules.
Discussion
Amending the Policies for City Boards, Commissions, Committees, Task Forces, etc.
The proposed amendments to the boards and commissions policies, attached as Exhibit A, include the following:
1. Recognition of outgoing members.
2. Method for presenting annual reports, when no Annual Dinner is budgeted. 2 of 3
3. Establishing a policy for appointing secretaries.
4. Establishing a deadline for submittal of agendas to the City Clerk’s Office
5. Discontinuing the requirement for board and commission members to receive onboarding training within the first 90 days of their appointment.
Teleconferencing Attendance Policy
The COVID-19 pandemic required boards and commissions to move public meetings to a virtual platform. The state legislature adopted AB 361, which relaxed the teleconferencing rules established by the Brown Act. The sunsetting of the COVID-19 state of emergency orders means that while AB 361 will remain in effect until January 1, 2024, COVID will no longer be applicable for invoking AB 361 to permit meetings to continue to be held virtually and all public bodies will need to revert to the teleconferencing rules prescribed by the Brown Act.
The state legislature has adopted AB 2449 which does allow for limited participation of members to continue to attend meetings remotely. However, unlike the Brown Act, there are strict guidelines as to the permitted reasons a member can attend a meeting remotely, attendance policies for how many meetings a member may attend remotely based on the number of regular meetings held by the body per year, and the requirement that the member must be able to participate in the meeting through both audio and visual technology. Because of the costs of upgrading City meeting facilities and the staffing required to support hybrid meetings, the City is unable to implement AB 2449 and the City’s Brown Act bodies must resume practices as they were prior to COVID-19.
On February 14, 2023, the City Attorney’s Office issued a formal opinion regarding whether the City is required to provide an accommodation for a member with a disability to attend a meeting remotely under the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act. The opinion states that a pre-requisite of being a member on a public body is the ability to attend public meetings in-person and therefore the City is not required to provide such an accommodation.
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Staff is seeking direction from Council as to whether it is in the best interest of the City to adopt an attendance policy to limit the number of times a member can attend meetings remotely under the Brown Act since it is silent on this matter. Staff recommends Council adopt the same attendance policy as stipulated in AB 2449 to ensure consistency in policy should the City be in the position to implement hybrid meetings in the future. Under AB 2449 a member of a legislative body may not participate from a remote location for a period of more than three consecutive months, or 20 percent of the regular meetings for the local agency within a calendar year, or more than two meetings if the legislative body regularly meets fewer than 10 times per calendar year.
Environmental Review
This is not a project for purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act.
Financial Impacts and Budget Actions
There are no budgetary impacts associated with this staff report.
Prepared By: Nikima Newsome, Assistant City Clerk
Approved Forwarded to Council
Attachments:
A. Exhibit A - 20230314 Board and Commission Policies Resolution B. PowerPoint Presentation