California’s seminal open-meetings law, the Brown Act, requires that public agencies conduct the public’s business in public view. It allows narrow exceptions over the specific “price and terms” of financial negotiations, but law’s intent is clear – officials’ “actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.”
Did the city of Anaheim, in deciding to sell Anaheim stadium and surrounding acreage to a development company controlled by Angels owner Arte Moreno, comply with that law? That’s the key question Orange County Superior Judge David Hoffer will decide as a lawsuit by the People’s Homeless Task Force heads toward home plate.
There are side issues, of course. State housing officials claim that the sale violates a law that requires cities to first offer “surplus” land to affordable-housing developers. The city and state reportedly are negotiating a resolution to that issue, but the core issue involves the public’s right to know.
Most significantly, Anaheim Councilman Jose Moreno, an opponent of the sale, and former City Manager Chris Zapata gave declarations affirming a point made by the plaintiffs: “all the deal points (had) been negotiated in secret.”
The city disputes that allegation. It asked Hoffer to strike Moreno’s declaration from the record because it violates restrictions on the discussion of closed sessions. But how can the court determine whether the city violated the act’s meeting restrictions unless it weighs testimony about what happened during those meetings?
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Mayor Harry Sidhu says the city never negotiated anything beyond “price and terms” before a December public meeting. Yet we’ve been troubled by the overall secretive nature of the city’s stadium-related discussions – reinforced by the judge’s ruling that Anaheim must expand its search of sale-related public records.
One of our frustrations is when cities use public meetings as a rubber stamp for decisions that already are set in stone, or treat public-information laws as technicalities they can work around. Judge Hoffer will decide if Anaheim did either of those things, but we believe the deal should be renegotiated in keeping with the open spirit of the Brown Act.