City Council to Consider Adopting New Remote Public Access Policies for Meetings

Below is text and recommendations by Sonoma’s City Attorney regarding an upcoming agenda item coming before the City Council at it meeting of September 16.  

Introduction

The City is committed to ensuring meaningful access to City public meetings for members of the public with disabilities, including through reasonable accommodations as required by law. Staff recommend adopting a Reasonable Accommodations Policy for Brown Act Meetings to establish a consistent and transparent process for requesting and providing reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for publicly noticed Brown Act meetings, such as City Council, commission and committee meetings.

SB 707

Effective January 1, 2026, SB 707 amended the Ralph M. Brown Act to establish additional public access and remote participation requirements for certain “eligible legislative bodies,” including the ability to engage in two-way remote participation by the public. A city council qualifies as an eligible legislative body if the city has a population of 30,000 or more or if the city is located in a county with a population of 600,000 or more. The City of Sonoma does not meet either threshold and therefore is not subject to the SB 707 requirements applicable to eligible legislative bodies for remote public access.

However, the City’s exemption from these SB 707 requirements does not relieve the City of its obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As relevant to this policy, Title II of the ADA requires the City to provide individuals with disabilities meaningful access to City public meetings and a meaningful opportunity to attend and participate in those meetings.

SB 707 also codified a recent Attorney General’s opinion finding that cities (regardless of whether they are “eligible legislative bodies”) must allow members of its legislative bodies with a disability to appear at meetings remotely as a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA.

Americans with Disabilities Act

Under Title II of the ADA, the City must provide reasonable modifications and appropriate auxiliary aids and services when necessary to ensure that individuals with disabilities have meaningful access to and an opportunity to participate in City public meetings; the City retains discretion, consistent with the ADA and based on the individual circumstances, to determine what accommodation is reasonable and appropriate, and may deny a requested modification if it would fundamentally alter the nature of the public meeting, or impose an undue financial or administrative burden.

Examples of reasonable accommodations that could be requested are:

• Qualified sign language interpreters
• Assistive listening devices
• Real-time captioning or computer-assisted transcription
• Accessible electronic or alternate-format documents
• Large-print materials
• Qualified readers
• Audio recordings
• Additional time
• Virtual participation with two-way audio (i.e., Zoom)

The City will give primary consideration to the specific accommodation requested; however, the City retains discretion, consistent with the ADA, to determine what accommodation is reasonable and appropriate based on the circumstances of the request.

Proposed Public Meeting Accessibility Policy

The proposed policy establishes a uniform process for members of the public and the City’s legislative bodies (e.g., City Council, Planning Commission) to request a reasonable accommodation.

The policy addresses:

• Readily available accommodations. Upon at least two business days’ advance notice to the City Clerk, the City can provide accommodations such as alternative-format agendas and reports, assistive listening devices, closed captioning, qualified readers, audio recordings, large-print materials, screen-reader-compatible agendas, and accessible meeting facilities.
• Remote participation for members of the public. Remote participation (Zoom or telephonic access with the ability to provide remote public comment by audio) is available as an accommodation when a disability makes in-person attendance impracticable or substantially limits Accommodating one individual does not, by itself, require the City to open remote access to the public generally.
• Remote participation for legislative body members. A Council or commission member may participate remotely as a disability accommodation, subject to Brown Act safeguards: participation by both audio and video (unless the disability prevents video), disclosure of any adults present at the remote location and the member’s relationship to them, and treatment of the remote appearance as in-person attendance for quorum purposes. The remote location need not be noticed or open to the public.
• Additional accommodations and limits. Individuals may request accommodations beyond those listed as readily available. The City will resolve doubt in favor of accessibility and will not deny an accommodation solely for late submission if it can still reasonably be provided. The City need not provide an accommodation that imposes an undue financial or administrative burden or fundamentally alters the nature of the meeting, but will offer an effective alternative where feasible.
• Request procedures. Public requests are submitted to the City Clerk (by phone or email), identifying the need, the meeting(s) involved, and contact information, ideally two business days in Legislative body members request remote-participation accommodations from the City Manager, ideally at least three weeks before the first affected meeting, followed by an individualized interactive process and a written decision.
• Confidentiality. Disability-related information, including medical records, is kept confidential to the extent required by law and is not included in public meeting

The policy is intended to provide staff and the public with a clear and consistent framework for requesting reasonable accommodations under the ADA.

General Public Comment Considerations

If the Council adopts the proposed accommodations policy, staff recommends the City Council amend the process by which it accepts general public comment. Currently, the initial general public comment item (Agenda Item 1) on each agenda is limited to ten speakers. If there are more than ten speakers, those who did not have an opportunity to speak during the first public comment section are allowed to make their comments during the later public comment period (Agenda Item 10).

If the City provides members of the public with the opportunity to make remote public comments, staff recommends any such individuals not count toward the total of ten during the initial public comment item. Remote public commentors with an accommodation would be invited to provide their comments after the ten in-person commenters and not be required to wait until the end of the meeting. Staff does not anticipate there will be a significant number of such commenters. If there are, this process can be revisited. Unless the Council would like to consider a different arrangement, staff intends to revise the agenda language as proposed if the Council adopts the proposed policy.