Milpitas, CA Privacy & Surveillance: Recording & Consent Laws (2026)

The City's Open Government Ordinance, Milpitas Municipal Code Chapter 310, sets the local rule for recording government proceedings. Section I-310-2.130(a) grants any person attending an open and public meeting of a policy body, meaning the City Council and its boards, commissions and committees, the right to record the proceedings with an audio or video recorder or a still or motion picture camera, and to broadcast the proceedings. That right can only be curtailed if the policy body makes a reasonable finding that the recording or broadcast cannot continue without noise, illumination or obstruction of view that constitutes a persistent disruption of the meeting; there is no blanket ban and no permit requirement for a member of the public to record.

Section I-310-2.130(b) goes further and obligates every policy body to itself audio or video record each regular and special meeting. Those City-made recordings become public records under the California Public Records Act, Government Code Section 6250 et seq., retained under the City's Records Retention Policy, and must be made available for inspection on a City playback device without charge, or provided as an audio recording upon payment of the actual duplication cost through a request made to the City Clerk. The chapter's companion provision, Section I-310-2.70, separately requires closed sessions to be recorded and retained, though those recordings are not opened to the public the way open-meeting recordings are. This local ordinance sits alongside, and reinforces, the state open-meeting laws it implements.