Most people have probably not heard of the Metcalf Advisory Committee as it has been meeting in what I consider closed meetings for the past year on Calpine's private property: a trailer on the site of the Metcalf Energy Center. This week while searching the city's web site I noticed a number of other city committees followed the Brown Act, a law that ensures citizens are given adequate notice of upcoming meetings along with the legal right to attend. I searched the city's and Councilmember Williams' web sites using Google and could not find any notice of past or future Metcalf Advisory Committee meetings. On Thursday I sent the following letter to Councilmember Williams:

Dear Councilmember Williams,

Many months ago I asked you about attending the Metcalf Advisory Committee meetings. The answer I received made me wonder if I could legally attend such meetings without an invitation when held on Calpine's private property.

Today I browsed the Coyote Valley Task Force web site and noticed a page that said those meetings are subject to the Brown Act. I did more searches and found the Airport Noise Advisory Committee is also subject to the Brown Act. This leads to the question: Are the Metcalf Advisory Committee meetings subject to the Brown Act? If not, why. My reading of the Brown Act says they should be.

Please let me know what you think about this subject. Closed meetings do nothing but generate suspicion and mistrust within our community.

Sincerely,

Steven Nelson

Hopefully Councilmember Williams will take the required action to bring the meetings into compliance with the Brown Act along with moving the location of the meetings to public property. The committee is set to decide the location of the air quality monitoring stations that were described in the city's agreement with Calpine. This work is too important to be done in meetings closed to our community.