19D - RESPONSE TO ORANGE COUNTY GRAND JURY

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The Honorable Judge Kim Dunning August 16, 2010 Page 6 for conduct or prohibited activities listed in the second paragraph of Section 4.7 of the report. No Brown Act Violation The most egregious misstatement by the Grand Jury in the report is the allegation in Section 4.9 that the City Council engaged in conduct that "possibly" violated the Brown Act. The Ralph M. Brown Act is a set of standards for the conduct of public meetings. At all times, Santa Ana city councils have complied fully with both the letter and intent of the Brown Act and the current City Council and City Manager are fully aware of the Brown Act standards regarding serial meetings and the limits of staff-Council communications. The Report contains absolutely no facts to support the inference that the absence of a noticed meeting of either the Transportation Committee or the City Council between March 16 and April 20 meant that city officials facilitated inappropriate communications among members of the City Council for the purpose of developing a consensus regarding Cordoba, or otherwise. In regard to the speculation in the last paragraph of Section 4.9 about close contacts between the City Manager and members of the City Council during the time in question, we must point out that Section 54952.2(b)(2) of the Brown Act expressly permits "...an employee or official of a local agency.... [to engage] in separate conversations ... outside of a meeting ... with members of a legislative body in order to answer questions or provide information regarding a matter .... if that person does not communicate to members of the legislative body the comments or position of any other member or members of the legislative body." In the face of contrary statutory authority and in the absence of any material evidence, the Report engages in rank speculation when it states: "[w]itnesses interviewed by the Grand Jury revealed that the City Manager's close contact with all of the Council members during this period took place outside public view. The City Council may have come to a consensus on the Cordoba proposal by using the City Manager as an intermediary among all parties." RESPONSES TO RECOMMENDATIONS RECOMMENDATION R-1: The City of Santa Ana should develop specific guidelines in its RFP process, specifying all program requirements used to evaluate applicants, including the scope and vision of the leadership. RESPONSE: The recommendation has been implemented. RFPs issued by the City include a detailed scope of work and identify the key factors to be evaluated in the selection process. These are standard provisions in RFPs. To reinforce this current practice, and to specifically address the Grand Jury's recommendation, the City Council approved a policy at their May 3, 2010 meeting regarding RFPs/RFQs that clearly states 19D-6