PROPOSAL:

Six-Month Pilot Program to Use Teleconferencing or Video-conferencing for Board Committee Meetings

SYNOPSIS:

Amendments to the Brown Act effective January 1, 1998 permit legislative bodies and their standing Committees to meet by teleconference or videoconference, subject to certain limitations. The Administrative Committee requested that the Board Committees selectively test this process over a six-month period. A report will be provided at the end of the pilot program period.

COMMITTEE:

Administrative, November 21, 1997, Recommended for Approval

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Approve the six-month pilot program on teleconferencing or videoconferencing to be conducted at the discretion of each Committee Chair and report back to the Board at the end of that period.

Barry R. Wallerstein, D.Env.
Acting Executive Officer

Background

The Brown Act, Government Code section 54950 et seq., provides that, with certain exceptions, all meetings of local legislative bodies shall be open to the public. These provisions apply to Governing Board meetings and standing Board Committee meetings. Prior to January 1, 1998, the Brown Act allowed members of a legislative body to attend meetings by video teleconferencing, but members so attending could not vote nor could they be counted toward establishing a quorum. As of January 1, 1998, the law has been amended (SB 138, Kopp) to allow members to attend meetings by teleconference as well as video teleconference, and to remove the prior restrictions on their participation.

Proposal

The Administrative Committee on November 21, 1997, recommended that your Board authorize committees to experiment with teleconferencing or video teleconferencing over a six-month period. A report will be provided at the end of the pilot program period.

The Brown Act as amended requires certain protections for the public when teleconferencing or video teleconferencing is used. These provisions include requiring that all teleconferencing or video teleconferencing be in a location accessible to the public, [ Other provisions of the Brown Act require all meetings to be held in a location accessible to the disabled, and where there is no charge to the public to attend. (Gov’t Code 54961.)] that the public be allowed to comment from any such location, that the agenda identify all locations at which teleconferencing or video teleconferencing will occur, and that an agenda be posted at such locations 72 hours before the meeting. (Gov’t Code §54953.)

In order to participate in a meeting by teleconference, it will be necessary for the Board Member to contact the Committee Secretary a week in advance of the meeting in order to allow the agenda to be prepared and faxed to the Board Member for posting at the teleconference location. For video teleconferencing, Business Services requests 10 days advance notice so that it can be determined whether the equipment at AQMD is compatible with the equipment at the video teleconference location. Initially, Committee meetings at which video teleconferencing is used will have to take place in the Auditorium, as there is not sufficient capacity in the District’s video teleconference room. During the pilot period, staff will investigate the costs and potential for equipping conference room CC-8 with video teleconference capability.

Resource Impacts

The pilot program will be carried out using existing District resources. Costs of video-equipping conference room CC-8 will be presented in a later report.

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