Keeping public comment on topic

COEUR d'ALENE — During a meeting when public comment policy was on the agenda Monday evening, not one community member signed up to speak.

School board trustees discussed potentially tightening the Coeur d'Alene School District's policy on public participation in board meetings, but voted 4-1 to table the discussion. Vice Chair Casey Morrisroe, who brought the proposed policy before the board, was the only board member to vote against tabling it.

The proposed policy would instruct those who give public comment to provide testimony only on items published on the board's agenda. The present policy states that "public comment may be taken on district-related items."

Morrisoe said the current policy was reviewed by the board about a year and a half ago.

"I thought about it after the last couple of months of public comment. We’ve had some really long public comment times, and some long meetings,” Morrisroe said. "In my history, when meetings get long, discussions at this point get pretty bad, just because we all start losing focus after sitting here for three or four hours. Or I do at least."

He said he researched the procedures of various boards and committees around North Idaho to see how they handle public comment and found a mix of approaches. Morrisroe said a slight majority require that comments given by community members are kept to agenda items.

He said board meetings are for the board to conduct district business.

"I think sometimes we get bogged down with comment," he said. “I don’t believe that public comment is the most efficient way for us to take it, I prefer the forums that we’ve talked about doing.”

Board members are not allowed to respond to public comment, so during long periods of testimony, people speak to the board and may leave with unanswered questions.

“Email at least allows for two-way conversation,” Morrisroe said. “Oftentimes a cup of coffee works best for me with someone when they have a question."

Trustees Allie Anderton and Lesli Bjerke both expressed concern with tightening the policy.

“Sometimes things creep up that need to be spoken and people want to have that option to do it in public, so I’d prefer not to have that in there,” Bjerke said.

Anderton said any restrictions on public comment are unnecessary. Trustee Heather Tenbrink said she also leaned away from adding restrictions, although she acknowledged Morrisroe’s motivation for the update.

“I understand your point, that to do our business we have to be not already worn out from sitting here,” she said to him.

The trustees discussed requiring an understanding or acknowledgment of comment guidelines before people speak, encouraging a consolidation of topics to cut down on time and updating the public comment form speakers use when they sign up to speak.

“We do not want to come across as stifling or limiting public comment,” Superintendent Shon Hocker said.

He said many times people only put their name on the form, which asks for name, city of residence, email or phone number. With the inability to respond or contact the speaker, this actually causes a bigger divide in communication, he said.

“The concern sometimes for me is those that maybe live far outside of our district and are commenting on pieces that are district related,” Chair Rebecca Smith said.

A special meeting of the board and budget adoption will be at 4 p.m., June 26, at Midtown Meeting Center, 1505 N. Fifth St., Coeur d’Alene. The next regular meeting of the board will be at 5 p.m. at the same location July 10.