A SIMPLE ACTION to take TODAY
Email this Notice of Claim to the Orange County Board of Supervisors
Friends,
I urgently need your help today!
The message below is what I am emailing to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, which is in violation of several laws.
If you can copy and paste (and add your own comments at the end) and then email to these addresses prior to Tuesday, Feb 14th, then the board will be inundated with these comments prior to their next board meeting.
You do NOT have to a resident of Orange County to take this action, because the legal ramification of this issue will have an impact across the country.
I explain everything in my recent video here: We Do NOT YIELD our SOVEREIGNTY
(and my previous video here: —» I PREDICTED this would HAPPEN!)
And my previous substack article here
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Here are the email addresses to use:
Andrew.Do@ocgov.com
Donald.Wagner@ocgov.com
Fourth.District@ocgov.com
Katrina.Foley@ocgov.com
Vicente.Sarmiento@ocgov.com
Leon.Page@coco.ocgov.com
frank.kim@ocgov.com
lilly.simmering@ocgov.com
response@ocgov.com [MUST include this one so it goes on the official meeting record]
Here is what you can send (option: add your personal comments at the end.)
TO: The Orange County Board of Supervisors; Don Wagner, Doug Chaffee, Katrina Foley, Andrew Do, Vicente Sarmiento, Leon Page, Frank Kim
FROM: [Your Name]
RE: Notice of Brown Act Violation
This is a formal notice of claim informing you that the Orange County Board of Supervisors, comprised of Don Wagner, Doug Chaffee, Vincente Sarmiento and Katrina Foley, is in violation of CA Gov Code 54950 et seq, known as the BROWN ACT.
This “sunshine” law guarantees the public’s right to attend and participate in the meetings of local legislative bodies. Public business must be conducted in the public eye, not behind closed doors.
Gov. Code § 54950 “The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
The Brown Act is such an important statute that it is enshrined in the California Constitution, Article 1, Section 3.
It is a violation of the Brown Act for any local legislative body to conduct meetings, either in person or by text, telephone, fax or go-betweens, as they constitute a meeting if done to discuss public business, regardless of whether the group actually forms a consensus.
[Ref: https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/facs-brown-act-primer/]
This Board is in violation of the Brown Act for refusing to follow CA Health and Safety Code 101080, which requires this legislative body to review the conditions of the local health emergency “at least every 30 days” and to terminate the local health emergency “at the earliest date that conditions warrant the termination.”
This Board voted to violate CA HSC 101080 (and similar statute CA Gov Code 8630) by refusing to place on a meeting agenda any further “Covid emergency” updates from the county health officer. This Board also violated the spirit and principles of our political system of three separate branches of government by abdicating their legislative duties to the executive branch, stating, “We’ll wait for the governor to tell us what to do.” This in effect establishes a one-person totalitarian rule, which is the antithesis of our Constitutional Republic.
A Writ of Mandate was filed by Peggy Hall (later joined by the California Chapter of Children’s Health Defense) in August 2021, to compel this Board to carry out its statutory duties by placing the health officer updates of the “Covid emergency” back on the agenda at the public meetings.
According to statements made at the September 22, 2022 hearing of Hall v. OC Board of Supervisors, attorneys representing the County provided a stunning two-faced illogical argument that: (1) The Board did not have to follow the statutory laws defining actions that must be taken during an emergency – because it was an “emergency;” and (2) The Board was “indeed reviewing local CV19 conditions this whole time in compliance with the law!”
If the Board was “indeed reviewing local CV 19 conditions the whole time,” then they must have been doing so in private. This is a clear violation of the Brown Act.
1. Note: The purpose of the Brown Act – also described in Cal. Const. A1, S3
– is to ensure public, open meetings “to facilitate public
participation in all phases of local government decision-making
and to curb misuse of the democratic process by secret legislation
by public bodies.” (G.C. §54950; Olson v. Hornbrook Cmmty. Svcs.
Dist. (2019) 245 Cal.Rptr.3d 236).
2. A “meeting” is any congregation of a majority of the board to
“hear, discuss, deliberate or take action on any matter within the
board’s subject matter jurisdiction,” or any use of a series of
communications by a majority of members of the board to
discuss, deliberate or take action on any matter within the board’s
subject matter jurisdiction.
a. G.C. §54952.2
3. The requirements of the Brown Act also applies to actions short of
official action, e.g. “collective acquisition and exchange of facts
preliminary to ultimate decision,” which Respondents are doing,
here. (Stockton Newspapers, Inc. v. Members of Redevelopment
Agency of City of Stockton (1985) 171 Cal.App.3d 95).
This is formal written demand for this board to cure and correct this violation within 30 days of this notice.
The cure and correction is to hold a public meeting under statutory obligations put forth in CA HSC 101080, to receive and review relevant information from the county health officer in order to determine the need for continuing the local Covid health emergency, or to terminate the local health emergency “at the earliest date that the conditions warrant.”
Note: that does not mean when the covid money runs out or when the governor “tells you.” The law is clear.
According to the League of California Cities handbook titled “Brown Act Basics” (November 2021), “One common approach to cure and correct a challenged action, is for a city council to consider the challenged action in a subsequent, duly-agendized open-session meeting.”
[Ref: https://cseany.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/How-to-File-a-Notice-of-Claim-2020-1_up.pdf]
IF this Board has been receiving public updates, as required by law, from the County Health Officer and voting on whether to extend or terminate the emergency, I request the DATE of the most recent meeting when this action was taken.
Thank you for your anticipated cooperation to the foregoing. I request a response within 5 business days.Therefore, I request a written response to this demand letter informing me of when this Board will “cure and correct” this violation. Your response is requested within five business days. You can reply to this email with your response.