The News & Observer is offering live video streaming of today's Wake County school board meeting.

Click here for the link.

UPDATE

I'm using this post for people to comment on the 79 speakers who've signed up.

The plan is go fo an hour with the remaining people going at the end of the meeting.

New rules in place include not being able to trade spots or split time witih other speakers and not being allowed to make personal attacks or insults on board members. People are being warned that they can be removed at school board chairman Ron Margiotta's discretion if their behavior is considered inappropriate.

The crowd is also being asked to refrain from cheering, booing or holding signs up above their heads.

The N&O and WRAL are offering to pay the cost of relocating today's Wake County school board meeting while supporters of the diversity policy are hurling accusations that the board is violating the spirit and letter of the state Open Meeting Law.

In a letter delivered this afternoon to school board chairman Ron Margiotta, N&O Publisher Orage Quarles said both media outlets will pay for the meeting to be held at to the Fletcher Theater at the Progress Energy Performing Arts Center so that more members of the public can attend.  

Quarles letter says a staff member with the City of Raleigh has assured him that the theater is available for use.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

We've already got a dozen people lined up around 9:30 a.m.  to get tickets for today's Wake County school board meeting but there comes a price.

Security officers are telling people who arrived before the estimated 10:30 a.m. ticket distribution time that if they leave the building that means they'll have to surrender the ticket. That's not sitting well with people who had hoped to pick up a ticket and then come back this afternoon for the meeting.

BTW, Wake says they're planning on streaming the WRAL feed of the budget work session and committee of the whole meeting into the main board room. That step is being taken because only staff and the media are being allowed inside the board conference room for those two meetings.

UPDATE

With the crowding running out the building and into the parking lot, tickets were distributed beginning around 10 a.m.

Security later backed down and allowed people to leave before 3 p.m. and keep their ticket if they said they'd return.

Things are going to be different for Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting in order to "ensure a safe and orderly environment, as well as to comply with fire safety standards.”

You'll need to get a ticket to get a seat inside the board room during the meeting. Tickets will be distributed beginning around 10:30 a.m. for the first 150 lucky people.

Here's the post for you guys to comment on the 106 people who've signed up to speak at today's Wake County school board meeting.

The questions is how long school boar chairman Ron Margiotta will allow comment to go before cutting it off. Based on the turnout, Margiotta said he's reducing the speaking time from three minutes a person to two minutes a speaker.

But even at just two minutes a speaker, we're looking at three hours and 42 minutes of comments.

As a sign of how large the crowd is, people are standing in the hallway because the board room is full. For the first time in recent memory, Raleigh police officers and Wake County sheriff's deputies are providing security at the meeting.

UPDATE

Update at 7 p.m. Afer 54 speakers, publlc comment has been stopped by Margiotta with 47 left to go. 

The school board has just come back from a 10-minute recess after Curtis Gatewood, 2nd vice president of the state NAACP, refused to stop speaking.

After the recess, Margiotta gave him 30 more seconds. On Gatewood's way out, he was cheered by the crowd.

Amid all the higher profile stuff at today's Wake County school board meeting are a pair of items that could affect who the board listens to and how they operate.

The board is scheduled to give final approval today to a policy change that would allow new board members to remove people on their board advisory councils. The board will also discuss today during the COW meeting changing board meeting times.

Both changes are being pushed by members of the new board majority.

This should be good news for all the people who plan to attend Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting.

The plan is to now hold pretty much the whole meeting, including the committee of the whole, in the main board room to accommodate the crowd. The only time that the board won't be in the board room is when it's in closed session, such as during the discussion on Supt. Del Burn's job status.

UPDATE

The sign-up period for public comments will be from 2-3:45 p.m. 

It's gotten harder to e-mail Wake County school board members.

The web contact page that allowed the public to click on hypertext links to e-mail one or more members has been taken down. The hypertext link to e-mail individual members has also been removed from the board member information page.

The addresses for individual board members are still located online. But you'll have to manually cut and paste them to send a message.

Before the blog gets buried again by more posts related to the resignation of Wake County Schools Supt. Del Burns' resignation, here's something that should make privacy advocates feel a little better.

During Tuesday's committee of the whole meeting, the school board agreed to tell staff to remove the addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses from the more than 800 people who had left comments on the district's web site about school calendars.

The board also agreed to partially honor the request of the ACLU of North Carolina by no longer requiring speakers at board meetings to say their address.

A lengthy commitee of the whole agenda sets the pace for today's Wake County school board meeting.

The COW meeting is starting an hour earlier than normal at noon to open up with the discussion of last week's facilities committee recommendation to scrap the Forest Ridge High site. Staff has warned it could cost $15.5 million more to go with an alternative site but new board members are skeptical.

Next will come capital plan funding and schedule changes to Plan 2000, Plan 2004 and the current program, CIP 2006. Among the topics will be using federal stimulus dollars to speed up the construction of Rolesville MIddle by a year.