We were offering up some suggestion on how to get more collaborative with citizens to a municipal government official the other day, but it seems that everything we offered up would not be allowed under the Brown Act of 1953. Stuff like using open to the public Google Groups to correspond between project stakeholders (allowing for citizens to join in and comment and contribute, and, at the very least, lurk), wikis to lay out project plans, forums and blogs to start conversations and thoughts and ask people’s opinions of different ideas floating through the heads of officials, etc. None of this is allowed in California.
Odd, I thought, so I trotted off to see what this Brown Act is all about. What I encountered was shocking to me:
The Brown Act, officially known as the Ralph M. Brown Act (California Government Code Sections 54950-54963), authored by Ralph M. Brown, an Assemblyman from Los Angeles County’s San Gabriel Valley, was enacted in 1953 by the California State Legislature in an effort to safeguard the public’s right to access and participate in government meetings within the State.
Um. Okay? So isn’t a Google Group or a wiki opening up public access to participate in government meetings? I mean, we in the web world consider the following actions to be opening up meetings for open source projects:
- IRC channel
- Public phone-in number
- Forum
- Open mailing lists
- Openly editable wikis
- Blogs
If, like the Brown Act, they required:
- Post notice of a meeting and the agenda for that meeting at least 72 hours prior
- Notify the media of special meetings
- Hold meetings within the jurisdiction of the governing body
Nothing would ever get done! I suppose the 72 hours works well (most meetings happen on a regular basis to avoid that), but for those who cannot make it to the meetings, IRC logs, open mailing lists, notes posted on a wiki and subsequent blog posts offer up a chance to join in on one’s own convenience.
Now, the the Brown Act also gives the following rules, which fit beautifully into how open source and other community projects conduct their correspondence and meetings:
- Allow non-disruptive recordings and broadcasts of meetings
- Allow public comment
- Those attending the meeting must not be forced to “sign in.”
- All votes made by the governing board must be made in public, and no secret ballots can be conducted
- All documents distributed at the meeting must be considered public documents.
Yep. Gorgeous and awesome. So, why is it that local Californian Governments cannot use open maillists, forums, irc chat, wikis, etc. for project collaboration online and have to stick with the antiquated notion of driving to meet in a previously agreed to location face to face as their only means of coordination?
Because, according to many critics, there is not enough public access to the internet.
Okay, I can see that the digital divide could be a barrier to some participation. However, I’d love to compare the recent statistics on access to computer terminals with internet connections to those with the ability to get around easily to those with televisions (the provision for the media is for those who can watch the meeting at home on their tvs). We also need to take into account that, even if one doesn’t have a computer at home with an internet connection, many public centers, such as libraries provide free terminals with reliable connections. Access does not mean you need to have a computer at home.
As well, I understand that ‘Access’ does not necessarily mean that you have the ability to reach a connected terminal. There is, of course, the learning curve involved in accessing many of these services we use. I would assume that a large percentage of those without access aren’t necessarily offline because they can’t afford a computer or get an internet connection: they are offline because they have not had the access to education around using these tools. According to a Pew Study:
It is not, however, simply a question of money or age. Non-internet users do not have very positive attitudes about information technology. Many report worries about information overload and few link information technology to greater control over their lives. Moreover, non-internet users are apt to see the online environment as a dangerous place – that is, a place with inappropriate or irrelevant content.
With the median age of the non-internet users being 59 and a 1/4 of them having income under $20k/yr, there probably won’t be much of a movement to go online. Which is a frustrating position to be in. While an increasing number of the North American population is online (over 70% are internet users and 47% have broadband internet connections at home, increasing to over 50% this year), the population that is not prevents adoption of new and amazing collaboration tools between government and citizens.
Perhaps in order to satisfy both needs, one could still provide the local meeting spaces and media notices and also utilize the web medium to get the word out further (as well as create a searchable public record). Perhaps there are other combinations. Either way, it is necessary to look at how the Brown Act could be reformed in order to lead governments towards better, simpler and cheaper public engagement. Hands are tied until we bring these laws up to date and accommodate for new technology that can provide much bigger wins for the future. Diversity runs in all directions.
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9 Comments
Great post Tara. I’d be really interested in seeing more congruity between the goals of the Brown Act and the reality of the read/write web. I suspect that there would be a lot of interest in this with elected officials and appointed commissioners, etc.
As well as internet access not being universal, wouldn’t you see “Those attending the meeting must not be forced to “sign in.”” as an obstacle? All internet usage is trackable - the possibilities for surveillance of political participation undermine the useful intention of this provision?..
I’m not sure anonymity is always provided at all physical meetings (I don’t think thats required by the Brown Act) - but it seems to me that if you really want to be anonymous online and participate in a conversation with an elected - that should be OK.
The point of the Brown Act is really accessibility and notice for the public to deliberative meetings of elected and other government officials. I think Tara’s points are that some of the requirements are incongrugous with a digitally-mediated discussion, or at least the deliberative, participatory mode of interaction (often asynchronous) that has built itself around things like IRC, wikis, etc… anonymity (or at least psudeonymity?) *is* an important aspect of that!
Thank you so much for researching this, I had no idea. So that’s why we get those incredibly boring cable channels with interminable Board of Supervisor meetings and nothing ever getting done. Just one of the ways that our bureaucracy is set up to discourage involvement. This seems to discriminate against those who can’t physically go to meetings.
Someone writing a law 54 years ago would not have anticipated new technology. If they were 30 years old, what new communication channels would they have encountered in their lifetime? We’re talking radio, print, landline, some tv.
Now think about the rate of new technology, and subsequent multiplication of communication channels over the last 10 years.
There are several challenges that governments are facing:
(1) the increasing diversity of communication channels, combined with the corresponding fragmentation of the target audience over the channels. I call it the digital toaster divide … I want to communicate with my govt using my internet capable toaster … I should have as much right to do so, as those iphone people.
(2) subsequently, trying to maintain or improve participation, while maintaining or improving customer relationships, while maintaining or dropping costs, with less economies of scale
(3) writing laws in a technology neutral manner, that achieve the outcomes desired
(1) and (2) are encountered by business too; (3) is unique to government
Great post, great discussion. Day job; I work extensively with the public sector in adoption of open source in IT Operations. Community jobs; Special District Commissioner and member of a local land use planning association that is part of our state’s legal framework for same. This virtual participation challenge has a deeper twist to it in our small coastal community, where half the homes are second homes, and using tools like Google Groups become a way to keep the non-resident owners (also with a stake in the community) involved in community planning. These property owners still must be present to vote in person, something that Oregon’s Open Meetings laws require, but even the notion of Google Groups for conducting any subcommittee or work-group activities quickly came into question by the county. We’ve successfully used Google Groups to collect ideas, share materials prior to meetings, schedule meetings and so forth, but the key is that no decisions or discussion leading up to a decision can be made. Great opportunity for vetting a meritocracy of ideas in the public interest, but not quite there. Hm.
I’ve been involved in the development of public broadband policy for a number of years now and think we’re just a half of a generation from seeing this change (as in more virtual participation). As policy makers become more comfortable with technology I predict they’ll be better able to create a “letter of law” making way for use of these community-based collaboration tools in a way that is consistent with the spirit of the open meetings laws on the books today.
I think this is going to take a higher level of leadership then is usually needed to bring tech into even the most stringent of corporate environments.
Being involved in politics this year, I’ve been thinking alot about how to bring social media into governance and my conclusion is that while seemingly dysfunctional now (or rather not optimally functional) such rules were put in place for a reason, and in order to move forward we really need to rethink the framework by which we conduct our democratic civic processes while also navigating the current system itself to get these changes to occur. So, I think your conclusion is spot on.
For those not networked into government, this looks like a chicken and an egg problem. Same for most people who are in government who don’t have the knowledge or the time to learn how progressive civic engagement can work and its’ benefits.
I really don’t think this is a chicken and an egg problem though; I think we just need more people who ‘get it’ to take leadership in introducing these ideas, tools and processes into governance. All the political grassroots web stuff going on right now may be developing a lot of that expertise in just the right places. We’ll see.
I’m curious as to how other countries that are a bit further along then we are have been handling these types of bureaucratic issues.
Oi. Legacy code.
Reading your post, it occured to me that the average ‘older’ citizen who may not be on the internet because they are wary of it, are almost certainly not wary of their TV.
In the US you have both Public Access and Government access. If Public Access television could be used as a trusted medium by those wary of the internet, then perhaps finding a way to connect all the media could be part of a solution.
For example, a citizen who could, say, call in to a bank of volunteer operators on a community organized participation program would effectively have access.
Its interesting…I’ve seen this “1/3rd of people don’t have access” used more and more often recently as reasons not to use the ‘net - and not just in Gov’t, its a useful naysayers tool in other areas too. Often of course, when you investigate current approaches you find that “real” access (as opposed to theoretical access) to them is also quite low.
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