Did the Half Moon Bay City Council violate the Brown Act?

Did the HMB city council violate the Ralph M. Brown open meetings act? Not as far as I have been able to determine. But the Review’s colorful front-page sidebar "City may have violated open meetings law" certainly makes it look that way:

Though Ferreira did not say so at the time, the recess resulted in a closed session - a private discussion between four council members, city staff and the city attorney regarding aspects of the recently concluded property negotiations. Councilwoman Toni Taylor was not in attendance that night. Under the Ralph M. Brown Act, a set of provisions governing the way government meetings are conducted, council was required to explicitly notify the public that it intended to reconvene in closed session, said Jim Ewert, staff attorney for the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

No such notification was given.

Actually, it was.  City Attorney Adam Lindgren says that after the recess was called,  more than one council member wanted to talk to him and he realized that this was not simply a consultation with a single member. He advised the mayor that the city council needed to inform the audience that it had to adjourn into closed session. 

According to City Manager Debra Ryan, "The mayor grabbed the gavel and announced a closed session."

Says Lindgren, "I am positive that the mayor didn’t violate the Brown Act."

Everyone who was at the meeting would have heard the announcement. This would not be clear to anyone viewing the videotape of the meeting, because the camera was turned off before the closed session was annnouced.

What happened next is murkier. According to the Review:

Whenever a council goes into closed session, it is required to identify the grounds for that private meeting, also something that was not done.

Satisfying the requirement would have been simple, Ewert said. Ferreira needed only to reference one of the closed-session items printed on the agenda.

According to Lisa Sitkin, attorney with Piper Rudnick, general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition, the fact that there was a closed item on the agenda and that it was clear this was what the council was discussing in recess would make this a technical violation at best.  "Although it’s awkwardly set out, it could be considered a continuation of the closed session. Technically, a closed session is supposed to be on the agenda, but it’s not like they went into closed session for another matter that wasn’t on the agenda." She says she wouldn’t advise a client to sue over the matter.

I called Jim Ewart of the California Newspaper Publishers Association three times in the last 24 hours to find out what facts he was given by the Review, but he hasn’t called me back.