BEDH Reinstated - sort of

At today's special-called board meeting, the board voted 7-0 to reinstate Board Policy BEDH - Public Participation at Meetings. Sort of...

Some kind of backroom deal must have been made, because Mrs. Libby Roof, the District's Chief Communications Officer, was ready with an explanation about how public participation would be conducted.

The public will NOT be able to speak during the board meeting.

What the public will be able to do is submit comments to the District during a few days before the meeting and up until about mid-afternoon of the day of the meeting. Then the submitted comments will be read to the board during the meeting.

The next board meeting is July 21. On about July 17 a notice form will be posted on the District's website, and a member of the public will submit his comment electronically on that form.

Let's say that a parent wants to really unload on the board about something it has or has not done. So he or she submits a strongly-worded comment (polite, no profanity; but strongly worded). Then a staffer will be expected to read that comment. Will it be read with the same emotion and forceful tone as that with which it was written?

Because Mrs. Roof was ready with her explanation, when a board member asked how public participation would be handled, that caused me to think that the board already knew about the that policy. And yet no one spoke up on behalf of the public to ask how a member of the public could address the board orally.

I guess we'll find out how well it works and if the board really "gets" what the member of the public was saying to them.