Please see below an e-mail that I wrote to the BOE members and Sup. Leary requesting that the public receive more information in advance of BOE meetings to make their comments to the board both meaningful and intelligent. We did make a little progress at the following Aug. 6th Work Session and BOE meeting as there were adequate copies of information available for the public. There also was an Agenda item about the BoardDocs technology and there will be a demo presentation in the future.
Sadly, the silly Public Comment policy requiring the public to comment before the information is presented continued. A community member who came to offer comments and was unaware of the policy change really struggled with the demand that she make her comments without any information. I can't believe that BOE members watching and listening to her felt comfortable or satisfied with the resulting discomfort and unhappiness that this created. Pres. O'Brien told her that she could come back in 2 weeks to comment on the presentation of information that occurred later in the Agenda.
Well, what is one more voter who is concerned enough to attend a meeting and rewarded with the cold shoulder of the new policy. At least she is in a really big club!
Dear BOE members and Dr. Leary,
I am writing to ask you to respond to what I believe is a completely
reasonable request that I have made numerous times. That is, that
community members be given IN ADVANCE as much information as is
available to BOE members about the topics on the Regular Meeting
Agenda. At the very least, would it be possible for paper copies of
the material being presented at the meeting to be available to
citizens in attendance? To attempt to follow overhead projections
that tend to be out of focus and moving is, again, not reasonable.
If you honestly believe the statement that is printed on the back of
the Agenda "Your presence here is always welcome. We hope that your
visit will prove to be enjoyable and enlightening." then you will make
your citizen guests feel included and part of the process rather than
only spectators.
With the recent change in policy in the timing of Public Comment to be
at the beginning of every meeting rather than during the normal
discussion time when the information has been presented, it makes
community member attendance and participation at the meetings
meaningless. To expect community members to attend a meeting based on
2 or 3 words on the Agenda and then to wait and listen to a
presentation and be required to return 2 weeks later to make a comment
is NOT REASONABLE and continues the sad history of exclusion that has
been a salient feature of the leadership of the ECASD BOE.
Commissioner Cummins has brought up during 4 meetings the Board Docs
technology that is used by many public entities to make information
widely available to citizens . I have attached a link that will show
you how this could be used by the ECASD to expand citizen
participation and information. I am asking that this be a discussion
item on a future Agenda for the BOE as well.
Website: http://www.boarddocs.com/
Also, I am attaching a link to a website that contains a list of
information that should be routinely available to citizens on the
School District website. (http://www.illinoisloop.org/candor.html)
Needless to say, the ECASD website is missing many of these items.
Thank you for your attention to this issue. I hope that I hear from
you in response to my questions.
Sincerely,
Maria Henly
and an e-mail from Laura Jensen regarding the same concerns about Pres. O'Brien's new Public Comment Policy:
Greetings to Dr Leary and to the Eau Claire Board of
Education:
First of all, I want to whole-heartedly welcome Dr
Leary to the Eau Claire school district. After only
one meeting, I can tell that he has the skills, tools,
and experience to begin a process that has been sadly
lacking in this school district for many years. I
wish him all the luck in the world.
I did not get up to speak at your meeting on Monday
because I had already said my bit at a previous
meeting. The *content* of Monday's meeting made me
realize, yet again, how utterly ridiculous your
so-called "citizen input" model for board meetings
really is.
This model appears to be designed not to actually
allow the public to provide meaningful input to the
board, but to minimize the time that the board spends
at meetings, while appearing to be accepting public
input. To allow the public a few minutes (fifteen,
thirty) of time at the beginning of meetings to
respond to a list of three-to-seven-word agenda items
*before* the board discusses them is beyond
ridiculous. How can we respond to a discussion that
hasn't even happened yet? The problem is independent
from the availability of good agendas and supporting
documentation. Even with the best agenda in the
world, the public would not be able to effectively
predict the course the board's discussion would take.
At the meeting on Monday, I counted *ten* different
time when I could have added to the discussion, either
as a parent of children in the school district, or as
an educator with two years of experience using
Infinite Campus (one of your SIS candidates), or as a
former computer programmer with experience in phasing
complex projects. I was prevented from commenting on
these topics - none of which was listed in detail in
an agenda item.
I am afraid that you, as a board, do not realize that
as elected public officials in the state of Wisconsin,
you have signed up for long public meetings. When you
were running for office, you may have been assured by
previous office-holders that the meetings could be
kept short by such artificial means as your citizen
input policy, but I believe that those assurances were
misguided. As I said to you in June, you have a very
serious problem with the public trust, and you need to
be making yourselves *more* available in a *more
meaningful* way to the public, not less.
I respectfully request that you reconsider the policy
on citizen input at your meetings, to allow citizens
to respond to each agenda item as it is discussed, to
allow an unlimited number of citizens to speak. The
chair of the meeting may need to exercise his or her
people skills in gently limiting the time of
particularly verbose public members, and of keeping
them to the topic at hand. I believe, though, that
you will find that the flow of ideas between the board
and the public will increase the public trust, and
will be a worthwhile investment of your time. I
encourage you to refer to the meetings of the Eau
Claire City Council and the Plan Commission for ideas
about how to conduct these meetings.
Sincerely,
- Laura E. Jensen
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1 comment:
Laura Jenson is right about the model of the council and plan commission for input at public meetings. It does take time, but it's time the public interested enough to attend a meeting deserves.
That doesn't, however, resolve some of the major issues involved in creating public dialogue about school policy.
Public comments at BOE meetings have to be focused on agenda items to avoid violation of open meeting laws. They are by design not well suited to dialogue since that could take the discussion beyond the agenda and be unfair to non-attending members of the public not forewarned of a particular tack the discussion might take.
My observation at council and plan commission meetings is that
non-believers of a particular cause - such as keeping an area sidewalk free -are often intimidated from participation by a demonstrative meeting audience, and their interests along with those of the public in general are not given the consideration they deserve. In most cases the legislative body involved (the school board in this case) understands this and realizes that they, not the immeadiate demonstrative prone public in attendance, are the responsible agents for the general public good. That is what they are elected to do and, I believe, generally do.
It is a mistake to assume that the people who appear and speak to
single issues represent the public or have the general public good in mind. They may or may not.
There is the related issue of how a concerned citizen with a broad perspective on the issues can best contribute to the community dialogue. But that's a topic for another time.
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