Mono County Grand Jury
• 2014-2015
• Agency Response
California November 25, 2014 Honorable Stan Eller Presiding Judge Superior Court of California Mono County Po Box 1037*
⚠️ Aviso de traducción: Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 5 findings
F1
Page 1
The Town agrees that one discussion of a potential materials recovery facility (MRF) occurred in open session at a Town Council meeting between 2009 and July 2013. The Town also agrees that other discussions were held in closed session concerning the price and terms for the potential acquisition of the existing solid waste transfer station or the adjacent parcel sometimes known as the "expansion parcel". The Town does not agree that any violation of the Brown Act occurred. The Town will discuss solid waste issues in open session where appropriate going forward, including discussions of potential long-term solutions for solid waste disposal, Mono County parcel fees, a new or extended solid waste franchise agreement, and issues involving CalRecycle.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
Page 1
The Town disagrees with the recommendation and declines to initiate a process to record closed sessions. Recording closed 1 sessions is not considered to be a best practice, and anecdotal evidence suggests that relatively few cities do this. Recording closed sessions increases the risk of inadvertent and improper disclosures of closed session discussions.
F2
Page 2
The Town does not disagree with the statement made in the finding.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
Page 2
The recommendation is already being followed by the Town. Town Council and management staff do attend regular training on the Brown Act and related training as required. This training takes place at least every two years. Certificates of attendance at the training program are provided to each person who attends the training. The Town Attorney does provide advice when requested on closed session items. The Town Attorney attends the majority of closed sessions in person or by phone and does actively limit discussion. Current Town management has also been trained and advised as the proper conduct of closed sessions and also limits the discussion as appropriate. The Council recently initiated an additional "reporting out" procedure. In addition to reporting out immediately following a closed session, when the public are generally not present, the item is placed on the next regular meeting agenda and a brief statement is made by the Mayor regarding the closed session item.
F3
Page 3
The Town agrees that closed sessions have at times been held prior to regular meetings, and observes that nothing in the law prohibits this. The Town agrees that announcing the closed session prior to conducting the session is required, and that this was not always done in the past.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
Page 2
The Town agrees with the recommendation that the Town Council "adhere not only to the letter of the Brown Act, but to its spirit as well . . ." The very purpose of a closed session is to allow for a process that allows the Council to effectively carry out the "people's business". To the extent that this process is deemed necessary and proper it will be used. If the business at hand can be conducted in an open session without placing the Town at a disadvantage, releasing confidential information or otherwise impeding the business of the Town, the item will be discussed in an open session.
F4
Page 3
The Town agrees with the statement of the finding.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
Page 2
This is not a formal recommendation requiring action by the Town and the Town does not disagree with the information provided.
F5
Page 3
The Town does not fully agree with the finding, as closed session items are listed in the agenda in a way that complies with the Brown Act.
No recommendations for this finding
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.