Why does School Committee muzzle the public?

Posted 8/23/15

To the editor:

It has come to this citizen’s attention that, according to the procedures of the present Little Compton School Committee, there is no opportunity for a citizen of Little Compton to go to a School Committee meeting and speak …

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Why does School Committee muzzle the public?

Posted

To the editor:

It has come to this citizen’s attention that, according to the procedures of the present Little Compton School Committee, there is no opportunity for a citizen of Little Compton to go to a School Committee meeting and speak to the committee publicly, officially, on the record during the meeting about anything that is on their mind. It is just not possible for that to happen. This is not right.

To be fair, as I understand it, something called “Public Discussion” is sometimes allowed on some items that are on the agenda.  When an item is on the agenda, and public discussion is allowed (usually under very restrictive guidelines), a person is given one three-minute time period to speak. Usually no questions are allowed and typically do not expect any back and forth interactions with any members of the committee.  Even though I find this very restrictive and arbitrary, this is not my issue.

My issue is that if a citizen is concerned enough about something to go to a meeting, currently there is no way that he or she can speak to the committee during that meeting if what they wanted to talk about was not on the agenda or no public discussion had been declared.

What possible problems would it cause the committee to include an Open Public Discussion item on the agenda of every meeting? This Open Public Discussion item would provide the opportunity for any citizen to speak for however long the committee decides (3 minutes?) on any topic(s) the person desires, even if it is not on the agenda.

I am going to get this on the agenda, with Public Discussion, for the Sept. 9 School Committee meeting.  I hope that enough people will read this and talk to other people and come to the Sept. 9 meeting and support your right to speak to the School Committee about anything at any meeting.

Dale Hennessey

Little Compton