Senate Standing Committee on Local Government

Good afternoon. The Senate committee and local government will come to order. Thank you for joining us for the meeting for this meeting. The Senate welcomes the public in person. We are holding our committee hearings here in the Capitol Building.

I ask all members of the committee, great, thank you, for being here in Room 112. We only have one bill on today's agenda, SB 1187, on a referral pursuant to Senate rule 29.10 D. This bill was significantly amended in this in the Assembly, so the Senate rules committee returned the bill to committee to hear those changes. Check for a quorum.

Senators D'Arazzo?

D'Arazzo here. Choi? Here. Choi here. Arian?

Here.

Yes. Arian here. Ashby? Cervantes? Here.

Cervantes here. Laird? Here. Layered here. Sayardo?

Here. Sayardo here. You have a quorum.

Okay. So now I just we've just and now if I could turn it over to Senator Choi.

Okay. Chairwoman, I'll make a presentation on SB 1187.

All for my bill. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Mister Chair and members of the committee. Last year, I authored SB 707, which comprehensively modernized Ralph Brown the Ralph Brown Act rules for government bodies to improve transparency and allow public access to their governments. The bill allowed governments to better serve communities and increase the public's access to meetings, especially for disabled working and non English speaking communities.

SB 707 included language access provisions related to the translation of agendas, additional languages, employed human translators, and conduct conducting additional outreach that are slated to go into effect immediately on 07/01/2026. Due to concerns from language access advocates, SB 1187 as recently amended removes the language access provisions, adds findings, and adds an urgency clause. Additionally, this bill alleviates cost constraints for local governments. To the stakeholders, I wanna thank you very much for the robust conversations with us, my staff.

I know we had several meetings.

We went back and forth. This is what being inclusive means to hear all sides and attempt to find a pathway forward. I'm thankful that we found one. With me today we have Eric lawyer, senior legislative advocate government finance and administration with CSAC as our lead witness in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, vice Chair and members. Eric Lohr on behalf of the California state association of counties in strong support of SB 1187. I wanna start by commending Senator de razzo for tireless efforts on the brown act over the past couple of years. I also wanna thank all the staff, consultants, and member staff who have engaged on this issue and dedicated, a lot of long hours on what is frankly a a very difficult, and often unforgiving issue.

The Brown Act is often challenging space given the critical importance of public meetings, public accessibility, and the real world challenges faced by local agencies.

SB 1187 is a direct response to concerns raised by language access advocates, removing prescriptive standards, mandates, formulas, and other directive language for local agencies. Nothing in this bill prohibits local agencies from improving language accessibility public meetings, cities and counties are already providing translated meeting agendas, live interpretation, alternative language captions, and other accommodations of language accessibility at meetings. SB 1187 is a helpful change to the law that benefits both, language access advocates and local agencies. We respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you.

Okay. Any other support statements to be made in the audience? No? If not, then the members Okay. Do you have a Yeah.

Answer. Comment? Ethan

Hagler. I'm a part of the California Municipal Clerk's Association and the Marin County Council of Mayors and Council members in support. Thank you.

Okay. Any opposition? Okay. I see nobody. And our committee members, any questions and comments?

Okay. Senator Laird. Okay. Okay. Moving the bill by Senator Seattle, but the correct language is Assembly amendments to be concurred in.

That's your motion. Yes. Say yes. Yes. Say yes.

Oh, okay. Our motion has been made. Rejoined for me. Motion has been made to to Assembly amendments to be concluded in. Any other comments?

Okay. And I'll make closing remarks.

Okay. My closing remarks is I respectfully ask for your aye vote, and I too wanna thank our our staff who worked extremely, extremely hard, long hours. Thank you, Mister Peterson and Cynthia.

Okay. With that closing statement, Clark, will

you please call the roll?

The motion is that the Assembly amendments be concurred in. Senators deRazzo? Aye. DeRazzo, aye. Choi, aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. A Ziegarto, aye. 60. The bell is out.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Okay. 6 zero bill is out. Thank you. Congratulations.

Thank you to all the individuals who participated in public testimony today. If you are not able to testify today, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the Senate local government committee or visit our website. Your comments and suggestions are important to us and we want to include your testimony in the official hearing records. Thank you and we appreciate your participation. We have concluded the agenda.

The Senate local committee on local the Senate committee on local government is now adjourned.