Brown Act violations are kind of a big deal. Usually.
Not so much in San Francisco. Here, it’s another Tuesday.
I learned a lot about the Brown Act at a recent SFBoE meeting. It was a Special Meeting to teach our Board about, well, the Brown Act. 100 slides and 3 speakers later, I felt educated. Thanks, California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and legal team.
In the meantime, the target audience—the San Francisco Board of Education (SFBoE)—couldn’t be bothered. It kept violating the Act it just learned about. Not taking public comment. No translation of a recent Spanish comment. Don’t let me bore you during the holidays.
But I must say I was impressed. Our SFBoE just managed to do a double Brown Act violation—one shot short of a hat-trick. That action may be unprecedented in State history.
Commissioners Matt Alexander and Mark Sanchez ignored all rules to form a “quorum” on a budget proposal, oops framework. Who cares about Budget Chair Jenny Lam, right?
We also saw President Gabriela López, Commissioner Alison Collins, and Vice President Faauuga Moliga buddying up to the teachers union leadership just before a critical vote. For those who would rather not look through the slides, this variant is “hub and spoke.”
Wanna know why the public doesn’t feel like it’s part of the process? Because it isn’t.
Not even a hand slap is coming as we are a City and County. And if California state laws are routinely ignored at the top, we got this dumpster fire of a BoE. Don’t our students deserve better?
In all fairness, Matt Alexander informed me that there are 23 employees in the SFUSD law department, not "28 lawyers." But seriously, that's a decent-sized law firm.