In summary The Legislature should prioritize core fixes to the Brown Act, avoid unintended consequences and create a path to meaningful reform. By Shawn Landres, Special to CalMatters Shawn Landres chairs the Santa Monica Planning Commission, is immediate past chair of the Los Angeles County Quality and Productivity Commission, and serves on the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Financial Oversight Committee, shawn@jumpstartlabs.org. After nearly 70 years of implementation and 14 months of a pandemic, meaningful improvements to the open meetings guarantees in the Ralph M. Brown Act will take longer than one seven-month legislative session. Since my November 2020, CalMatters op-ed, I’ve heard from local officials, professional staff and public transparency advocates up and down California, all of whom agree that reform must be a shared priority.