[Author's note: My apologies for the delay on this article. It disappeared for a while when Blogger was having trouble last week, and I just discovered it was back!]
At last Tuesday night's (5/10/11) regular Board of Education Meeting, the board voted 5-3 to change the way members of the public may speak to the board. Previously, individuals had three minutes to address the board on matters pertaining to education in Middletown, and this public session was the fifth item on the agenda after the Call to Order, Salute to the Flag, Adoption of Agenda, and District Highlights.
Under the new policy, members of the public may address the board during a first public session only on matters listed on the agenda. The time limit of three minutes has not changed. A second, new public session has been added to the very end of the agenda, just before Executive Session (if the Board goes into one). During this time, members of the public can speak to the board about any matter pertaining to the Board's jurisdiction, and again, the time limit is three minutes.
There was much discussion about this policy change before the vote, with BOE members Jay Keiser, Sheila Daniels, and Corinne Gill voicing strong hesitation or outright disagreement with the proposed change: "I can remember being a busy parent, and this [speaking during public session] is a valuable way to communicate to the Board of Education. It's inconvenient and unfair to ask people with legitimate concerns not on the agenda to wait until the end of the meeting, " argued Keiser. Corinne Gill pointed out that the proposed policy listed the second public session AFTER any Executive Session, and this would mean that members of the public would have to sit through the meeting, then wait in the hall for the Executive Session to finish, and then be able to speak: "We were elected to listen, and I think we should listen." Sheila Daniels, who is on the Policy Committee and who worked on the creation of the new policy, commented, "Even though I worked on this policy, I agree that maybe we need to really look at what we're trying to accomplish. Someone could easily just wrap what they really want to say around an agenda item and we won't have accomplished what we think we're accomplishing."
On the other side, those BOE members voting for the new policy changed justified it as "just doing what the public told us they wanted to do." Specifically, several board members said this policy change was a result of complaints from the public who were embarrassed to take the microphone and speak to the board "after some of the things that are said." BOE member William Grady said, "This is an opportunity to get control over the board's agenda....to say that it's a way to chill free speech is incorrect....we're interested in appropriate comments to guide the board, not to fulfill a personal agenda." Grady finished his comments by dangling the possibility that BOE members might consider "responding" in a possible Q&A format during the public session at the end of the meeting.
BOE member Sally Boske, Chair of the Policy Committee, said her committee was just "listening to the public, which is what you [the BOE] said we want to do." Boske said her committee wanted to "do something about what's been going on," and that "we listened to the public, this is what they wanted the BOE to do."
BOE Chairman Ted Raczka added his support for the change by saying the "opening session is hostile and it puts a chill in the air....it's a bit too much of a circus." Raczka also added that this new format actually expands the public's ability to interact with the board because now there are two chances for an individual to address the board - once at the beginning of the meeting and again at the end. "And if it doesn't work out, we can always revisit this policy and change it,' Raczka finished.
In response to two concerns raised about making people wait to speak until after an Executive Session, the policy was amended to schedule the second public session BEFORE an Executive Session. It was also noted that the second public session could always be moved up on the agenda for a particular meeting if the meeting looked like it was going to be a late night.
