Budget Advisory Committee to Hold First Open Meeting

Monday, July 8, 2013

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Budget Advisory Committee to Hold First Open Meeting

By a MetNews Staff Writer

The Judicial Council’s Trial Court Budget Advisory Committee will hold a meeting that will be open to the public, for the first time, tomorrow, the Administrative Office of the Courts said Friday.

In a release, the AOC said committee co-chairs Laurie M. Earl and Zlatko Theodorovic had decided to exercise their discretion to hold a public meeting. The meeting will take place at the Hiram Johnson State Office Building in San Francisco from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will be audiocast live at the state courts’ website.

An agenda is posted at the website as well.

“As chairs of this important committee,” Earl said in a statement, “Mr. Theodorovic and I feel the process of deciding how taxpayer money will be distributed to the trial courts for the benefit of the public is an appropriate topic for an open meeting.” Earl is presiding judge of the Sacramento Superior Court and Theodorovic is the AOC director of fiscal services.

The committee recommends how trial court funding should be allocated. Recommendations arising out of tomorrow’s meeting are to be presented to the Judicial Council July 25.

Opening the meeting to the public is a sound precedent, Fourth District Court of Appeal Justice Douglas P. Miller said in a statement.

“I appreciate Judge Earl’s initiative,” Miller, the chair of the Judicial Council’s Executive and Planning Committee, said in a statement. “We’re months away from developing a proposed rule on public access to appropriate committee meetings. I agree with Judge Earl that the upcoming budget meeting is indeed an appropriate one to open.”