Cities across Orange County are racing to figure out how to allow residents to call into city council meetings to give public comments as part of a new state law that takes effect July 1.
Last week, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Fullerton and La Habra voted to implement the new policy changes by the deadline. All cities, with the exception of La Habra, voted on the issue with no discussion.
The new state law updates California’s chief government transparency law, the Brown Act – which mandates local governments hold meetings that are open to the general public and guarantees that members of the public can participate in them.
On Oct. 3, 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 707 into law, making changes to the Brown Act, including requiring local governments provide the public with access to attend and participate in meetings remotely via a two-way telephonic service or two-way audiovisual platform, like Zoom.
Other changes aim to increase accessibility to those who haven’t “traditionally participated in open meetings” by providing translated agendas.
The new changes also create procedures on how to handle online service disruptions.
The Brown Act now requires local officials to stop the meeting for at least an hour to try and restore online services to the public.
If they are unsuccessful, officials have the option to either make a motion to continue the meeting without online access or cancel the meeting entirely.
The City of La Habra will be using Zoom as a way to provide remote access to meetings.
At the June 1 meeting, City Clerk Rhonda Barone explained that they will be doing test runs of the system before the July 1 deadline in order to avoid as many disruptions as possible once the system is up and running.
“We have updated and improved some of the technical equipment in an effort to stay ahead of that and avoid some of those technical issues,” Barone said.
La Habra will also be offering meeting agendas in English and Spanish while considering other language offerings.
Councilwoman Rose Espinoza brought the idea of potentially having an on-site translator for meetings – a service that cities like Anaheim and Santa Ana have.
“With computer technology and AI, there’s been more availability of various language translations for documents,” Barone said. “We’ve provided translators in the past, and the public have also brought in their own translators as well.”
The cities of La Palma and Rancho Santa Margarita are both adding video in response to SB 707.
Both cities are the last of Orange County’s 34 cities to not offer video streaming of city council meetings and have instead been providing audio of meetings – making it difficult for residents to determine which one of their city council members is speaking.
Rancho Santa Margarita city council voted to approve the purchase of over $41,000 worth of audio-visual equipment from Matrix Audio Visual Designs to be installed over the course of May and June to comply with SB 707.
“SB 707 basically rewrites at least 13 sections of the government code,” Rancho Santa Margarita Councilmember Bradley McGirr said during the April 22 meeting.
“This is not an easy statute to read. In fact, it’s been open for interpretation for the last seven months. I’ve personally heard attorneys through the Orange County Fire Authority and other places with different interpretations of what this statute requires.”
La Palma will be using Western Audio Visual to live-stream meetings. As of now, the city will be negotiating what visual set-up works best for them, projecting to have their new system running by August.
Sara Leon is a Voice of OC intern from Cal State Fullerton. You can reach her at sleon7903@gmail.com.
