Watch and listen here as Kerry Morrison quotes Sheila Kuehl blaming the L.A. County Supervisors’ utter failure to solve our homelessness problem on the fact that the Brown Act requires them to hold open meetings and conduct their deliberations in public (full transcript after the break as always). The message essentially is that the Supervisors can’t get anything done if they have to do it when people are watching. This kind of attitude is, of course, the reason we have to have a Brown Act in the first place. Kerry Morrison’s statements are hearsay, and it’s just as likely that Kerry Morrison, in the throes of her fever dreams of a Hollywood Reich, delusionally attributed this sentiment to Kuehl. We’ll never know at this point.

Readers of this blog are probably pretty familiar with the Brown Act’s requirements. They essentially say that the Supervisors can’t discuss legislative action in secret. They have to do it in public meetings.¹ The law doesn’t restrict the kinds of things they can talk about, it doesn’t restrict the kinds of deals they can make with one another or with third parties. It only requires them to conduct their deliberations and decision-making in public.

So Kerry Morrison’s version of Sheila Kuehl’s position is disconcerting. She claims that Kuehl claims that the Brown Act prevents the Supervisors from eliminating homelessness because “…they can’t converse with each other. You can’t horse-trade votes. … You know, so you can’t collaborate, you know, can we all agree on what we’re all gonna…you have to do it all in open session, and it’s very cumbersome…” The idea seems to be that the supervisors can’t have an honest discussion in public, so they can’t have any discussion at all.

Kerry Morrison doesn’t elaborate, probably because the authoritarian world-view inherent in this statement is so comforting, so familiar to her. If you’re one of those who think that it’s more important that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth than it is to have the goddamned Red Line running on time you may have trouble following the argument, though.
Continue reading Kerry Morrison Says That Sheila Kuehl Blames Supervisors’ Complete Failure to Deal With L.A. County Homelessness On The Brown Act’s Open Meeting Requirements: We Can’t Solve Problems When People Are Watching →