Residents are encouraged to address the City Council on matters appearing on the City Council meeting agenda. However, California’s public meeting laws prevent the City Council from discussing or taking action on items that are not on its agenda.

If you address the City Council about an item that is not on the agenda, the City Council may provide a brief response and will often assign it to staff for follow-up.

City Council meetings are business meetings where Council Members consider important matters related city operations and regulations. To ensure compliance with open meeting laws and conduct the community’s business in an efficient manner, City Council meetings do not include the opportunity for dialogue or question and answer with Council Members or staff.

Call (714) 229-6699 to schedule an appointment.

To reach all five Council Members, email citycouncil@cypressca.org. Individual Council Member email addresses are available by clicking on their profile (above).

Write to the City Council at 5275 Orange Avenue, Cypress, CA 90630.

You can click the How Do I menu at the top of this page, use our wonderful Cypress Central App or visit the City's Contact Us webpage for other contact options.

In short, the Brown Act is California’s open meeting law. It regulates how and when the City Council can meet, and what it can discuss. To ensure the public’s business is done in an open and transparent matter, the Brown Act limits discussions at City Council meetings to the items listed on the agenda; requires gatherings of a majority of the City Council to be open to the public and noticed in advance; and (for practical purposes) puts the City Council listen-only mode with speakers at City Council meetings.

The Brown Act does not limit residents’ ability to communicate with Council Members outside a City Council meeting

The Legislature’s intent in the Brown Act: “In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this State exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly. The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.” The Brown Act also provides: “All meetings of the legislative body of a local agency shall be open and public, and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting of the legislative body of a local agency, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.”

In the November 2004, California residents approved Proposition 59, which amended the California Constitution to include a public right of access to government information: “The people have the right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business, and, therefore, the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public scrutiny.”