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Deferred Compensation Advisory Committee
Resolution: Continued Remote Meetings Under Brown Act August 27, 2021

officials. Effectively, this means that local agencies must agendize a Brown Act meeting
once every thirty days to make findings regarding the circumstances of the emergency
and to vote to continue relying upon the law’s provision for teleconference procedures in
lieu of in-person meetings.

AB 361 provides that Brown Act legislative bodies must return to in-person meetings on
October 1, 2021, unless they choose to continue with fully teleconferenced meetings
because a specific declaration of a state or local health emergency is appropriately made.
AB 361 allows local governments to continue to conduct virtual meetings as long as
there is a gubernatorially-proclaimed public emergency in combination with (1) local
health official recommendations for social distancing or (2) adopted findings that
meeting in person would present risks to health. AB 361 is effective immediately as
urgency legislation and will sunset on January 1, 2024.

DISCUSSION:
Because local rates of transmission of COVID-19 are still in the “substantial” tier as
measured by the Centers for Disease Control, we recommend that your Board or
Commission avail itself of the provisions of AB 361 allowing continuation of online
meetings by adopting findings to the effect that conducting in-person meetings would
present an imminent risk to the health and safety of attendees. A resolution to that
effect and directing staff to return each 30 days with the opportunity to renew such
findings, is attached hereto.

FISCAL IMPACT:
None

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