Thursday, May 24, 2012

Restore public comments at the end of meetings

There's a petition started by David Taylor urging the school board to restore the second public comment section at the end of the school board meetings.   I encourage everyone to sign it.  Regardless on where you stand on the school board issues, I think we can all agree that additional public input can only help.

During the election, the candidates, who are now the new board members, campaigned on what good listeners they would be, especially in contrast to the then current board.  I know this, because I repeated it many times on this blog.   I was pleased when the board moved the first set of public comments to the start of the meeting, allowing them to hear from the public before they had their own discussions on the issues on the agenda.

 I was however dismayed when the board eliminated the second round of public comments.  It was a chance for the public to comment on what just transpired at the meeting.   Without the comments at the end, the public is forced to write letters, or to wait two or three weeks until the next meeting before they can voice their opinions.

The meetings of late have been largely uncontroversial.   Not too many members of the public have been attending.  I take this as a good sign -- the public thinks the district is in good hands and trusts the board to run things.   At the most recent meeting, I was the only member of the public to stick it out to the very end.

Presumably the main reason to eliminate the second round of comments is to shorten the meeting.  Given the recent attendance, it's pretty evident that restoring the second round would only add a few minutes to the meeting.  I urge the board to stand behind their campaign rhetoric about what good listeners they'd be, and restore the second round.   I think if we get enough members of the district to sign the petition, the board will see the light.

- Dean

Software testing from here down, please ignore. - Dean


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