Agencies following the state’s open meeting laws must balance public safety imperatives with advancing critical projects as they determine how to hold public meetings while Californians can’t go out in public.

By Nikki Buffa, Taiga Takahashi, Samantha K. Seikkula, and Julie Miles

California’s two open meeting laws — the Brown Act and the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act — require that meetings of local agencies’ and state boards’ legislative bodies generally be open to the public. To satisfy this requirement, meetings must be publicly noticed, an agenda must be posted in advance, and the public must be allowed to observe and participate.

However, once the COVID-19 pandemic led to the requirement of physical distancing, these agencies were no longer able to host public meetings consistent with the open meeting laws.