Reducing public comment to once a month

Is the move to only have one public comment section a month at Wake County school board meetings an effort to streamline operations or to silence the public?

As noted in today's article, the board is set to give final approval this afternoon to policy changes that would eliminate one of the two monthly comment sections. One of the two regular board meetings would be redesignated as a work session, which would have no public comment.

The changes were proposed by school board chairman Ron Margiotta, who said it would make the board run more efficiently.

The redesignation of one meeting a month is tied in with the elimination of the board's standing committees. Only ad-hoc committees like those dealing with student assignment, economically disadvantaged students and the superintendent search, would still meet.

Margiotta said "our committee structure doesn't work very well," with a majority of board members typically attending committee meetings. As a result, he said most of the board winds up discussing an issue in committee, during the committee of the whole and during regular board meetings.

Instead, Margiotta said they can eliminate some of the committee meetings by dropping the standing committees to have the full board discuss issues during work sessions. He said fewer meetings per month would make it easier on board members who are employed.

Margiotta cited last week's work session on the budget as an example of how well things can work meeting as a committee of the whole instead of in the individual committees.

Margiotta said they're also planning on holding three or four meetings a year for ceremonies honoring students and employees. He said they can take action at those meetings if something comes up that is pressing and can't wait until the next regular board meeting.

But the changes are being met with opposition from critics of the board majority.

Board member Kevin Hill said that not having committee meetings will reduce the ability of board members to have input on issues. He said the work session won't provide the time needed for through review of issues.

Hill said that only having one public comment section a month goes against the majority's campaign platform of listening to the public.

The Great Schools in Wake Coalition has accused the board majority of trying to silence the public with the changes.

Margiotta said the accusations are wrong.

"These are people who are going to disagree with everything that we do,” Margiotta said. “If they want to create an issue out of this, they can."

UPDATE

The liberal N.C. Social Justice Project is accusing the school board majority of trying to "hide" from the public with the changes.

In a blog post today, the NCSJP isn't buying the argument the changes will help board members who have jobs. They also don't believe the changes are unrelated to the public opposition at board meetings to ending the diversity policy.

"While we are certainly sympathetic to the professional demands of those members who have other jobs, we don’t recall them complain much about that," the NCSJP writes. "School board member are not volunteers, they are paid for their work, and it seems reasonable to expect the public would gain some sort of access to members."