Berkeley Speaks comment:
A grassroots lawsuit against the City of Berkeley for violations of the California open meetings law (Ralph M. Brown Act) has won on appeal.
Background: For months beginning in October 2023, the beginning of the intense bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli military, demonstrators filled the Berkeley city council chambers. The protestors demanded that the council join neighboring cities including Richmond, Oakland, and San Francisco in calling for a ceasefire. The council refused to discuss the issue. Instead, on several occasions, the mayor moved the meeting into a back room, with limited public internet access but no face-to-face interaction with the public.
Berkeley People’s Alliance filed BPA v. COB in state court on February 22, 2024 to force the council to follow the open meetings law. The Superior Court ruled against the BPA, but the plaintiffs appealed and on September 30, 2025, the State Court of Appeal reversed the lower court, finding unanimously that the City had violated state law.
The BPA press release below is a good summary of the issues and the ruling. The Appeal Court ruling can be read here. The BPA lawsuit can be read here.
In this introductory comment, Berkeley Speaks reflects on the political significance of this victory for open government. Let’s unpack the reasons that it was important for BPA to file suit, and what this decision means.
1. Why must government meetings not be in secret?
The Brown Act’s (1953) preamble says it best:
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 mayor claimed on each occasion that the level of disruption from people attending the meeting “meant the City was unable to safely restore order by removing the disruptive people.” The incidents might have been unpleasant for the council, but there was no serious threat to public safety.
It is noteworthy because his argument is parallel to a rationale given for the larger issue posed by community members: “Why won’t you even talk about the genocide our country is supplying the weapons for?” In that political debate, opponents of a ceasefire conflated criticism of Israeli military actions with antisemitism, and accused ceasefire supporters with creating an unsafe atmosphere for Jewish people.
The BPA complaint, accepted by the Court of Appeal, stated that the City jumped to an extreme remedy, a remedy that was not allowed by the Brown Act: to meet behind closed doors without even attempting the remedy that the Act prescribes, which is to clear the room of disrupters. Who suffers when the City excludes the public? First, the meeting attendees; and second, the entire community of Berkeley, which collectively loses the opportunity to observe and interact with the making of the laws they live under.
The ruling in this case caught the attention of the Berkeley Youth Commission, as reported in the Berkeley High Jacket (see “Berkeley People’s Alliance wins appeal lawsuit against city council”). “Hannah Sinead Slattery-Weisberg, BHS junior and chair of the Youth Commission, believes the lawsuit has brought renewed attention to how local governments operate and why open meetings are so important.”
The Brown Act is meant to make sure government decisions happen in public and are transparent. Not only does transparency protect against corruption, but it helps citizens feel that their interests are prioritized.
2. Why are in-person meetings important, as opposed to video-only?
Why it is vital to be able to see decisions being made in person, and for decision-makers to be able to see and hear their constituents?
Many in Berkeley appreciate the inclusion of a remote option for attending government meetings. In fact, it took a lawsuit by the disabled community to reinstate a remote option in Berkeley after the pandemic emergency was declared ended.
At the same time, remote viewing can never be the same as being “in the room where it happens,” to quote the play Hamilton. The Sacramento news outlet Calmatters states:
It is not acceptable to have board members and commissioners shielded from in-person public comment, emotional testimony or protests. In a remote meeting, no one can even be sure that the members are listening.
It’s also been observed that remote participation removes almost entirely the ability to observe non-verbal clues on both the feelings, and even the attention of the legislators. If you are not in the room, you will not get the full context of what is happening, both with the decision-makers and with your fellow community members—or even to know if there are any others online with you. It certainly makes it harder to hold officials accountable.
3. What does this struggle reveal about the state of democracy in Berkeley today?
We should learn from this country’s rapid slide to authoritarianism that it is not only pro-people policies we must fight for. We must also fight to maintain democracy itself. Donald Trump is intolerant of dissenting opinions, and he simply fires, or prosecutes, people who hold them; and he displayed his disdain for transparency by firing 18 inspectors general in one night. But even in Berkeley, city government has slid over the years to devalue the civic commissions, and to minimize the input of community members at city council meetings.
With new leaders in the mayor’s office and the city council, we can hope for a decision process that is more inclusive and pays attention to the community’s deep desire for social justice and peace. The Court of Appeal decision in support of the BPA lawsuit should be a reminder to city leaders that “the people do not surrender their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them.”
4. Why did demonstrators believe that business as usual could not be allowed to continue?
To answer this question fully would take an article of its own. It is worth noting that everyone is aware that the Berkeley City Council does not have the power to end the war. Yet the accumulated record of over 250 local governments standing up for a peace with justice did greatly impact the nation’s consciousness, and brought us to a point where the search for peace, for an end to unconditional military support for Israel, and for self-determination for Palestine—the three pillars of the Peace and Justice Commission resolution on Gaza—are on the national agenda.
On a personal level, more than one Palestinian-American told Berkeley Speaks how important it was to hear their local government both acknowledge their pain and their human rights, and press two U.S. administrations to stop the war.
What comes next?
The stakes of this court battle reach beyond Berkeley to cities and counties across California.
If the mayor and council had won the case, any public body in the state would be able to legally flee from the public and have what are in effect secret meetings, whenever they arbitrarily deemed the public disorderly.
In reality the entire purpose of the Brown Act was on the line in this court case.
Former Mayor Jesse Arreguin, now elevated to state senator, said the ruling “defies logic,” and instead of accepting the decision he will move to change the Brown Act to make his actions legal. Earlier this year Senator Arreguin briefly introduced, then pulled back a bill that would have banned protests within a block of a “targeted residence” including a politician’s house. Both of these measures are also reminders that while democracy is often messy, the biggest danger is always from those who see protest as a threat.
BPA Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 2, 2025
APPEALS COURT RULES BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL VIOLATED THE STATE’S TRANSPARENCY LAW WITH BACKROOM MEETING SCHEME
In a victory for California civil liberties, a three-judge panel for the Court of Appeal of the State of California First Appellate District ruled in favor of the Berkeley People’s Alliance along with Nathan Mizell, an Alliance Board Member and Berkeley resident, in their 2024 lawsuit to prevent the Mayor and City Council from committing further Brown Act violations.
The Court of Appeal held that Berkeley did not comply with the Brown Act when the City Council retreated to a back room that did not allow the public to access the meeting in person. The Court concluded that Berkeley cannot rewrite statutes enacted by the State Legislature. In the future, Berkeley and other cities will need to comply with what the Legislature plainly provided in the Brown Act.
The lawsuit was filed in response to the Berkeley City Council’s violation of California’s Ralph M. Brown Act, the open meetings law that prevents government secrecy and promotes public participation. The Act’s preamble reads: “The people do not yield their sovereignty to the bodies that serve them.” BPA sought an injunction to protect the right of the public to be present in person when important legislative decisions are made.
The Brown Act violations occurred when Council business and members of the public were at odds during the meetings. Some members of the public asked the Council to pass a resolution supporting a ceasefire in the Gaza genocide. At three separate meetings, former Mayor Jesse Arreguín recessed the Council and held the remainder of the meeting in a back room, where members of the public could not attend in person. BPA is not aware of any other California city attempting such actions to isolate public officials from the people who elected them despite facing similar petitions for ceasefire resolutions regarding the Gaza genocide. The City did not argue that other cities had done so.
“This ruling affirmed what Berkeleyans have known all along — that the Brown Act and the State’s constitution ensure the public’s in-person participation at public meetings and extra-textual excuses for preventing access cannot stand” said Mr. Mizell. “Ultimately, instead of agreeing to withdraw from its unlawful backroom practice as the Alliance requested, the City chose to double down and spend taxpayer dollars on defending the indefensible.”
“This decision follows a recent attempt by former Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín, now a State Senator, to further curtail civil liberties in California by outlawing peaceful protest within a city block of a ‘targeted’ residence, such as a politician’s home,” said BPA Board Member George Lippman. “These moves against peaceful protest, whether at a government meeting or in the streets, are not responses to real threats to public safety. This pattern of repressing constitutional rights is the opposite of what this country needs right now.”
Berkeley People’s Alliance is a community alliance of local organizations dedicated to advancing social, racial, economic, and environmental justice in the City of Berkeley.
BPA was represented by East Bay lawyer Jonathan Weissglass.
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CONTACT: nmizell@berkeley.edu / 760-917-2699