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The City of East Palo Alto disputed on Wednesday a resident’s complaint that the City Council had violated the Brown Act when three members agreed to sanction one of their colleagues and remove him from committee assignments.
California’s Brown Act requires by law that government agencies meet in public, give proper notice of those meetings, refrain from discussing city-related matters in a majority outside of meetings and set “reasonable” public comment procedures, among many other limitations.
Ravneel Chaudhary, a resident who submitted the complaint on Sept. 16, said he intends to escalate the notice and has contacted the district attorney. Agencies that do not follow Brown Act regulations may be subjected to legal action, which may include orders to take fresh votes and overturn decisions.
The complaint followed the council’s rare decision on Sept. 10 to censure Council member Carlos Romero and remove him from his regional boards after he said fellow Council member Webster Lincoln “may be deaf and dumb” during a discussion regarding the city’s affordable housing policies. Romero later apologized for the comments.
Prior to the meeting to sanction Romero on Sept. 10, Lincoln, Mayor Martha Barragan and Vice Mayor Mark Dinan expressed interest in the punitive measure, according to city documents. Chaudhary believes that the trio’s predetermination of votes coupled with Barragan’s public speaking limitations constituted a Brown Act violation.
The council meeting was limited to an hour and a half because it was scheduled closely before another public meeting, prompting Barragan to limit public comment to 20 minutes and cut off Zoom participation, according to Chaudhary’s Brown Act complaint.
“This arbitrary limitation prevented members of the public from exercising their right to comment,” he wrote.
East Palo Alto legal staff refuted this claim, saying that Barragan set “equitable time limits on speakers” by allowing them one minute each and setting a cut-off time, City Attorney John Lê wrote in the city’s response to the Brown Act complaint.
Additionally, Lê said he believes council members did not intentionally schedule the council meeting right before another public meeting in order to restrict public comment, according to the response. Dinan similarly maintained that the law was not broken.
“To reiterate what the city attorney has stated – there was no Brown Act violation at our meeting,” Dinan wrote in a message to this publication.
But Chaudhary also believes the council predetermined votes ahead of the meeting.
Specifically, he and council member Ruben Abrica raised concerns about evidence the trio used to decide on Romero’s sanction. This includes the formal “warning” that Barragan claims she gave to Romero in June. Romero says the warning never happened.
“We discussed several topics including civil discourse at council meetings,” he wrote in a message to this publication. “However, she did not specifically notify me that she would sanction me with a bar from participating on boards that she reappointed me to should she determine that I had transgressed again.”
Lê said the city has no evidence that the three council members who voted for the sanction spoke or convened outside of the public meeting and noted that council members are allowed to raise complaints with staff.
“In conclusion, we respect your right (and that of others) to address the Council and to meaningfully participate in public meetings,” Lê wrote in the city’s response to Chaudhary. “But we ask that you assist the City in putting this matter behind us and look forward toward opportunities to enhance public engagement.”
