Attorney General Issues Opinion on Public Comment at Board Meetings

Date:  July 2007

The state Attorney General’s Office has issued a new opinion reaffirming the rights of all people, including school district employees, to attend and speak during the public comment portion of school board meetings.

An assistant high school principal received notice that he was going to be demoted to a teaching position and that that personnel decision was going to be placed on the consent agenda for ratification at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Opinion number 07-106 addresses the question of whether the superintendent could prohibit the employee from attending the meeting and from speaking about his demotion during the public comment period of the meeting.

Consistent with various court decisions on this issue, the Attorney General's Office concludes that the superintendent could not prohibit the employee from attending or speaking at the meeting. According to the opinion, all persons are permitted to attend any open session of a board’s public meetings without preconditions. While the superintendent exercises supervisory authority over employees with respect to work-related duties, the Attorney General's Office determined that that authority does not extend to prohibiting an employee from attending, on his or her own time, a public meeting of the board. The opinion acknowledges that the board could have designated the demotion as a closed session item; because in this case the board decided to agendize the item for open session, however, it was beyond the scope of this opinion to discuss whether the employee had a right to attend a closed session.

With respect to the public comment, the Ralph M. Brown Act allows members to testify on any issue within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. The demotion required board approval. Furthermore, school staffing, an issue of public significance, clearly falls within the board’s jurisdiction and, as such, the employee must be allowed to speak during the public comment period of the meeting.

“There are no surprises in this opinion,” said Richard Hamilton, director of CSBA’s Education Legal Alliance. “The attorney general merely confirms what most attorneys have long advised their clients—when it comes to the public’s right to testify at a board meeting, the courts will generally favor openness in conducting the public’s business.”

Related link

A copy of the opinion can be found at: http://ag.ca.gov/cms_pdfs/opinions/2007-07-26_07-106.pdf