BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1077|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1077
Author: Holden (D)
Amended: 6/22/15 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE GOVERNANCE & FIN. COMMITTEE: 6-0, 6/17/15
AYES: Hertzberg, Nguyen, Beall, Hernandez, Moorlach, Pavley
NO VOTE RECORDED: Lara
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 75-0, 5/22/15 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: Mutual water companies: open meetings
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill amends the Mutual Water Company Open Meetings
Act to allow mutual water companies to use teleconferencing as a
means to allow eligible persons to access board meetings.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Specifies that any corporation organized for or engaged in the
business of selling, distributing, supplying, or delivering
water for irrigation purposes or for domestic use must be
known as a mutual water company.
2)Defines a "public water system" to mean a system for the
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provision of water for human consumption through pipes or
other constructed conveyances that has 15 or more service
connections or regularly serves at least 25 individuals daily
at least 60 days out of the year.
3)Establishes, pursuant to the Mutual Water Companies Open
Meetings Act, increased transparency requirements for mutual
water companies that operate a public water system, including
the following provisions:
a) Defines "eligible person" to mean any of the following:
i) A shareholder or member of the mutual water company;
ii) A commercial or residential renter to which the
company provides drinking water;
iii) An elected official of a city or county who
represents people who receive drinking water directly
from the company;
iv) Any other person deemed eligible by the company's
articles or bylaws.
b) Allows an eligible person, upon 24 hours advance written
notice, to attend meetings in person;
c) Requires an eligible person-without giving 24 hours'
notice to the board-to be able to attend a meeting that is
held via teleconference, and requires the notice for the
meeting to specify where an eligible person may hear the
teleconference meeting;
d) Requires eligible persons to be notified at least four
days prior to a meeting;
e) Requires the board to permit any eligible person to
speak at any meeting, within reasonable time limits;
f) Provides, with limited exceptions, that a mutual water
company Board may not discuss or take action on any item at
a meeting unless the item was placed on the agenda included
in the meeting notice that was posted and distributed
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pursuant to the Act;
g) Allows the board to meet in executive session, during a
regular meeting or exclusively in executive session, for
certain purposes.
4)Requires, pursuant to the Ralph M. Brown Act (Brown Act), that
all meetings of a legislative body, as defined, of a local
agency be open and public and all persons permitted to attend,
unless a closed session is authorized.
5)Defines, for purposes of the Brown Act, local agency to mean a
county, city, whether general law or chartered, city and
county, town, school district, municipal corporation,
district, political subdivision, or any board, commission or
agency thereof, or other local public agency.
This bill:
1)Revises portions of the Mutual Water Company Open Meetings Act
to improve the access of eligible people to mutual water
company board meetings in the following ways:
a) Specifically requires a mutual water company's board to
allow an eligible person to attend a meeting in person if
the person has given at least 24 hours' notice of their
intent to personally attend the meeting.
b) Allows the board to use teleconferencing to provide any
eligible person access to a meeting who has been denied
access because either:
i) The eligible person did not give at least 24 hours'
notice of their intent to attend in person, or
ii) The number of eligible persons who have given notice
to attend in person exceeds the capacity of the meeting
room that was listed in the meeting notice.
c) Defines teleconferencing to include any electronic means
that allows an eligible person to hear and interact with
the board, such as a cell phone with a speakerphone or
audio or video conferencing over the internet.
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d) Requires that, if the board uses teleconferencing, it
must provide the meeting materials to the eligible person
either electronically or physically before the meeting
begins.
e) Provides that a board cannot prohibit a person from
attending the meeting either in person or by
teleconference.
f) Makes several changes to the provisions allowing for
executive sessions, including:
i) Prohibits a board from meeting solely in an
executive session and makes conforming changes to other
provisions;
ii) Specifies that a board may prohibit an eligible
person from attending an executive session where matters
relating to the potential acquisition, of real property
or water rights will be discussed (in addition to the
circumstances allowed under current law);
iii) Specifies that when a board meets in executive
session to consider litigation, the litigation must be
pending or potential;
iv) Requires the board to meet in executive session if
requested by a member subject to discipline, and allows
the member to attend such a session.
Background
Local agencies are subject to stringent requirements to hold
open, public meetings when making decisions. The Ralph M. Brown
Act, first enacted by the Legislature in 1953, is the set of
state laws which guarantees the public's right to attend and
participate in local legislative bodies' meetings. The Brown
Act establishes procedures to ensure public access to
information maintained by local agencies and that the decisions
made by public agencies are done in an open and transparent
fashion to retain public control over those agencies.
As private corporations, mutual water companies are not subject
to the Brown Act. Instead, state law gives mutual water
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companies broad authority to specify in their articles and
bylaws how their meetings are conducted, and who may attend.
But because, some mutual water companies operate public water
systems that provide water to consumers who are not
shareholders, the Legislature passed AB 230 (Rendon, Chapter
633, Statutes of 2013) to increase transparency requirements.
AB 230 established the Mutual Water Company Open Meeting Act,
which imposes requirements on the meetings of the board of
directors of mutual water companies that operate a public water
system.
AB 230 expanded the ability of Californians who are served by
mutual water companies to attend board meetings. However, due
to their small size and often-remote location, many mutual water
companies struggle to accommodate all interested parties. Thus,
despite these recent changes to state law, some residents served
by mutual water companies-but who are not shareholders or
members-are concerned that they are not being provided adequate
access to the meetings of mutual water companies' boards.
Comments
1)Purpose of the bill. This bill safeguards the ability of
Californians served by mutual water companies to provide input
on decisions that affect their water service. This bill
modestly expands on the requirements established by the Mutual
Water Company Open Meetings Act by enabling mutual water
companies to use teleconferencing, to ensure that eligible
people are able to attend meetings of the board. By making
the use of teleconferencing permissive rather than
prescriptive, this bill strikes a balance between ensuring
that people served by mutual water companies have access to
meetings without imposing burdensome requirements on small
mutual water companies that don't have large meeting rooms or
large budgets to procure additional space. In addition, the
teleconferencing provision is flexible enough to allow for
measures as simple as a speakerphone, to provide access to
meetings that people would otherwise be excluded from those
meetings. These changes further the intent of the Mutual
Water Company Open Meetings Act, to promote better engagement
between shareholders, customers, and board members.
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2)Increased Burden on Private Companies. Opponents of the bill
argue that this bill imposes a number of burdensome
requirements on mutual water companies that other private
companies do not have to meet. For example, the
teleconferencing provisions of this bill potentially allow
people who are not eligible to remotely attend private board
meetings. In addition, it could require great expense to
provide technology that provides for interaction with
customers, which goes beyond the interaction that even public
agencies are required to provide. Finally, this bill sets up
mutual water companies, to violate the requirement to provide
meeting materials to eligible persons that attend the meeting
via teleconference by only giving the companies 24 hours to
send out the materials.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:NoLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified6/24/15)
Sierra Club California
OPPOSITION: (Verified6/24/15)
Rubio Canon Mutual Water Company
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 75-0, 5/22/15
AYES: Achadjian, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla,
Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau,
Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly,
Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina
Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez,
Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Holden,
Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder,
Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina,
Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, Patterson, Perea,
Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago,
Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Wilk, Williams,
Wood, Atkins
NO VOTE RECORDED: Alejo, O'Donnell, Olsen, Waldron, Weber
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Prepared by:Anton Favorini-Csorba / GOV. & F. / (916) 651-4119
6/25/15 9:08:40
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