Public Comment

BROWN ACT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Shirley Dean thinks the City Council violated the Brown Act when it failed to take action in closed session to appeal the court’s decision on the Student Athlete High Performance Center but then did not report in public the vote of individual City Council members (Daily Planet Opinion, July 31). Her logic is that “by any account, taking no action is still an action.” Apparently, there is a difference of opinion, since the same issue of the Planet contains an article by Judith Scherr who did some homework and talked to the city’s attorney as well as the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition. They both concur this was not a violation of the Brown Act. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Through a misdirected e-mail the Daily Planet learned that this letter originated with UC Berkeley public relations official Irene Hegarty, and that someone else was asked to sign it by a UC faculty member and Berkeley resident who supports the gymnasium development, in order to conceal Ms. Hegarty’s role in drafting it. We are aware that there are organized letter-writing campaigns on both sides of this issue, but we believe that a deliberate attempt to conceal the university’s role in this endeavor is a dishonest act not appropriate for a great public institution.