L.A. Brown Act Prosecutors to Hold Open Forum

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Sep 21, 2009 | Legal Issue: Open Meetings | 0 |

OPEN MEETINGS — Public prosecutors in Los Angeles County will present a free panel presentation on Thursday, October 1, explaining how the district attorney and city attorneys enforce the Brown Act. The program is open to the public and will include Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware.

Involved public officials will include District Attorney Steve Cooley and his Public Integrity Division Head Deputies, Dave Demerjian and Jennifer Lentz Snyder, as well as City Attorneys Marsha Moutrie (Santa Monica) and Michelle Bagneris (Pasadena).

The program, from 10 a.m. to noon, will be held in the Board Room of the Metropolitan Water District, 700 N orth Alameda Street, Los Angeles. Mike Webb, Redondo Beach city attorney, will moderate.

Those wishing to attend should RSVP with their name and government agency (if any) by Friday, September 25, responding to cpa@da.lacounty.gov. For further information call (213) 974-7264.

About The Editor

Terry Francke, General Counsel

Terry Francke has a 39-year history of helping journalists, citizens and public officials understand and use their First Amendment and open government rights. With CalAware, Francke has authored comprehensive and authoritative guidebooks to California law on access to government meetings and public records and the news gathering and publication rights of journalists. Focusing on these issues in public forum law, he supervises CalAware's legislative and litigation initiatives; conducts workshops on legal compliance; helps design public records audits; supports local sunshine ordinance drafting efforts; writes CalAware Today, a blog on current developments and proposals in the law and best practices; and answers countless queries by phone and e-mail from citizens, journalists, public officials and employees, and lawyers. Francke previously served 14 years as executive director and general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition, after a 10-year post as legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He has served as an advisory panel member to the National Center on Courts and the Media; taught journalism law at the Department of Communication at Stanford University; and served as an expert contributor to the 1994 major revisions to the Ralph M. Brown Act and the 2004 ballot proposition making open government a basic right of citizens under the California Constitution. Francke is a 1967 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a 1979 graduate of McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Prior to his legal career, Francke worked as a weekly newspaper editor and in military and local government public affairs positions.

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