Significant Brown Act Amendments Enacted Under SB 707

On October 6, 2025, Governor Newsom signed SB 707 enacting what some commentators have termed the most significant changes to the Ralph M. Brown Act since its initial enactment in 1953.

The amendments essentially contain two categories of revisions. The first category applies broadly to public agencies as of January 1, 2026, and the second category, labelled by some commentators as the "Super Brown Act," applies to a specially defined subset of public agencies, or an "eligible legislative body," as of July 1, 2026.

The primary revisions applicable as of January 1, 2026, are:

• Teleconferencing. Retains, but revises, existing teleconferencing and alternative teleconferencing provisions to uniformly apply certain noticing, disclosure, accessibility, and public commenting provisions. If a local agency elects to use teleconferencing, it must provide at least a 2-way audiovisual or telephonic connection and a live webcasting of the meeting. The minutes must list any member appearing remotely and the specific provision of law permitting the remote appearance. The agency must identify and make available to its legislative body a list of one or more meeting locations that may be available for use by the body to conduct its meetings. A member with a disability can participate remotely as a reasonable accommodation and can appear only via audio if the condition requires an off-camera appearance. A member can now also appear remotely due to a physical or family emergency or military leave. A "local emergency," as defined, allows a legislative body to use alternative teleconferencing. The bill clarifies that "teleconference" does not include the attendance of legislative body members solely by watching or listening via webcasting that does not permit members to interactively speak, discuss, or deliberate on matters.
• Teleconferencing By Other Entities. Allows specified multijurisdictional bodies of a local agency, eligible subsidiary bodies, neighborhood councils and community college student organizations to conduct a teleconference meeting.
• Board Member Social Media Communications. Extends indefinitely a provision currently set to expire on January 1, 2026, allowing a board member to communicate with another person on a social media platform for purposes of answering questions, providing information to the public or soliciting information from the public without constituting a "meeting" governed by the Brown Act provided a majority of the members do not use the platform to discuss among themselves business that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the body. The board member shall not respond, including responding with icons, to any communication posted by another board member that is made, shared or posted on the platform.
• Reporting Compensation. Requires the legislative body to make an oral report prior to taking final action on compensation for a department head or other similar administrative officer of the agency (this reporting requirement currently only applies to the agency's executive officer).
• Providing Copies of the Brown Act. Requires the agency to provide a copy of the Brown Act to any person elected or appointed to serve as a member of a legislative body of the agency.
• Requirements Applicable to Subsidiary Bodies. Allows an agency that adopts requirements beyond the Brown Act minimum to apply those requirements to bodies under their control or with members subject to their appointment.
• Special and Emergency Meetings. Requires all agencies to comply with the internet posting requirements for notices of special meetings, and imposes additional posting requirement for emergency meetings.
• Meeting Disruptions. Applies provisions addressing disruptive conduct at live meetings to teleconference meetings.
• Public Comment. Allows for public comment on items even if the matter has already been heard by a committee if the committee's primary jurisdiction focuses on elections, budgets, police oversight, privacy, removing from, or restricting access to, materials available in public libraries, or taxes or related spending proposals. The public currently does not have a "public comment" right to address items that have previously been heard by the committee unless the legislative body has substantially changed the item.

The primary revisions applicable as of July 1, 2026, are:

• Eligible Legislative Body. Creates a new sub-category of public agencies for purposes of Brown Act compliance referred to as an "eligible legislative body." An "eligible legislative body" is defined as:
  • a city council with a city population of 30,000 or more;
  • a county board of supervisors with a county, or city and county, with a population of 30,000, or more;
  • a city council of a city located in a county with a population of 600,000, or more; and
  • a special district that has an internet website and meets one of the following
    • its boundaries is entirely within a county with a population of 600,000 or more and it has over 200 full-time equivalent employees;
    • it has over 1,000 full-time equivalent employees; or
    • it has annual revenues that exceed $400 million and it employs over 200 full-time equivalent employees.
• Additional Meeting Requirements. An "eligible legislative body" must comply with additional meeting requirements, including that, except as specified, all open and public meetings include an opportunity for members of the public to attend via a 2-way telephonically or audio-visually if such services are operational at the meeting location. Auto-captioning on any audio-visual service must be enabled.
• Encourage Resident Participation. The "eligible legislative body" must take specified actions to encourage residents to participate in public meetings including members of the public in underrepresented and non-English speaking communities and including a system for electronically requesting agenda material, a webpage dedicated to public meetings and outreach.
• Teleconference Disruption Policies. The "eligible legislative body," on or before July 1, 2026, must approve at a noticed public meeting in open session, not as a consent item, a policy regarding disruption of telephonic or internet services occurring during meetings. Policies must include recessing the open session for at least one hour after the disruption and making a good faith attempt to restore the service. The body may meet in closed session during the recess. If service cannot be restored after at least an hour, the body must adopt a finding by roll call vote that it has made good faith efforts to restore service in accordance with its policy and the that public interest in continuing the meeting outweighs the public interest in remote public access.
• Meeting Interpretation. The eligible legislative body must assist members of the public who wish to translate a public meeting to another language or who wish to receive interpretation services. The body must publicize instructions on how to request such assistance. Assistance can include arranging space for an interpreter, allowing extra time for interpretation to occur, and allowing space to accommodate personal equipment or access to commercially available services. The body is not required to provide interpretation services.
• Translated Agendas. The eligible legislative body must translate the posted agenda and the meeting website content into other applicable languages which generally refers to a language spoken by more than 20% of the applicable population. This obligation does not extend to the entire agenda packet, and the body can use a digital translation service. The body must post the translated agenda in a public location, and it must allow members of the public to post additional translated copies of the agenda at that location. The body is not responsible or liable for the content or accuracy of any translation.

SB 707 expressly applies to charter cities as well as general law cities. SB 707 does not impose a state mandate requiring reimbursement under the California Constitution. Certain provisions, including provisions related to eligible legislative bodies, currently sunset on January 1, 2030.

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