Berkeley People's Alliance v. City of Berkeley

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs allege that defendants violated section 54957.9 during three city council meetings in late 2023 and early 2024. At each meeting, the mayor determined that the city council was unable to conduct business due to disruption from the people attending the meeting. The mayor stated that the level of the disruption and number of people meant that the city council was unable to restore order by removing the disruptive people. The mayor did not order the meeting room cleared but instead recessed the meetings, which reconvened in a different room. The press was permitted to attend the reconvened meetings in person, and the public was permitted to attend by video. The room to which each of the meetings reconvened was too small to permit admittance of all nondisruptive members of the public in attendance at each meeting, and, in each instance, the city council did not return to the original meeting room. There was no attempt at the meetings to restore order by removing the people who were interrupting the meeting, nor was the meeting room ordered cleared. Seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, plaintiffs alleged that defendants violated the Brown Act by (1) not…