Lockout Protest Prompts Re-do of Wal-Mart OK

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Jan 15, 2009 | Legal Issue: Open Meetings | 0 |

OPEN MEETINGS — The Sacramento Bee reports that the Lodi City Council's go-ahead for a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter on December 10 will be rescinded in response to complaints that the session violated California's open-meeting law.

During the meeting, dozens of people remained outside in the cold after being kept out of the packed Carnegie Forum. The doors were locked to comply with a fire marshal's mandate that the 150-person capacity not be exceeded.
    The meeting lasted until after midnight and produced 3-2 approval of an environmental impact report for the Wal-Mart project.
    Citizens for Open Government failed that night in a bid to have the meeting delayed so everyone could attend. Last week, the group sent a demand letter declaring the Ralph M. Brown Act had been violated.
    Members of the group threatened to file suit if the city failed to remedy the problem.

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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