Beaufort County leaders are still meeting virtually. But what about public comment?
Local government boards across Beaufort County have questioned how to handle public comment over the last month of remote meetings, with varying levels of success.
Typically, public commenters must attend local government meetings in person and submit a comment card before the meeting starts.
They’re then given three minutes to address officials, either at the start or end of the meeting or when the topic they want to discuss comes up on the meeting agenda.
But under SC Gov. Henry McMaster’s “stay at home or work” order, public meetings have largely gone online.
So what avenues are local governments opening to the public to speak up at meetings?
Beaufort County
Since March 23, Beaufort County Council has held five meetings virtually through Cisco Webex.
The meetings, streamed on Facebook Live and on The County Channel, have been fraught with technical problems, inaudible mics and a dwindling viewership.
The County Channel has a live stream on its website, and is Channel 2 on Comcast, Channels 9 and 113 on Hargray and Channel 1304 on Spectrum.
If residents want to address council members during the meeting, the county has asked residents to email comments to the clerk of council prior to the meeting, sign up to participate by phone during the public comment period or comment on Facebook Live during the meeting.
While very few residents have participated in the call-in public comment period, the ones who did experienced several dropped calls or other technical issues.
Despite some of the growing pains due to the new way of doing government business, officials have been mainly receptive to comments from the public about inaudible mics or presentation issues and have tried to fix them.
Hilton Head Island
The Town of Hilton Head Island has been holding meetings online since March 21.
The town accepts public comment through an online forum up until two hours before the meeting.
Town staff have told The Island Packet that the comments submitted online are then summarized and distributed to the town council prior to the meeting. But to date, no town council member has referenced a public comment submitted online in a meeting.
While council members have said they’ve been “flooded” with calls and emails from constituents, the town’s public comment method is a far cry from the three minutes people are typically afforded at in-person meetings.
The town has also heavily relied on Facebook comments to gauge public interest in meetings and decision making. At the March 30 town council meeting, town manager Steve Riley said council meetings were being streamed by 14,000 people. He said that if the number of Facbeook comments on the meetings were multiplied by the three minutes given for public comment at a traditional meeting, the council would have solicited 8.8 hours of public comment.
The comments posted to the town’s Facebook page, however, were generally much less focused on a specific issue, and, in most cases, were reactions to town council members’ comments or votes in the meeting.
Beaufort and Port Royal
Both Beaufort and Port Royal are livestreaming their council meetings on Facebook, where they’re monitoring comments, officials told the Beaufort Gazette and the Island Packet.
At their April 1 meeting, Port Royal invited the public to participate in their meeting by calling 978-990-5000 and using the access code 732583#.
For a Historic District Review Board meeting this month, the city of Beaufort provided a Zoom link and invited the public to join.
Board of Education
Since McMaster’s March 13 order to close all South Carolina public schools, Beaufort County’s school board has held one full board meeting and two agenda-setting meetings over Zoom.
The full board meeting was streamed over the County Channel and the public was invited to join the agenda-setting meetings on Zoom.
The school board has asked public commenters to email their name, phone number and topic to the board assistant Robyn Cushingberry at robyn.cushingberry@beaufort.k12.sc.us in the hour before the meeting. Commenters will be called to deliver their comment. The comment period near the beginning of the meeting is limited to 30 minutes.
Per the board’s policy manual, board meetings should include a second, 15-minute public comment session at the end of the meeting.
That was missing from the April 7 meeting, but the board’s officers decided Monday to hold their standard second public comment session at the April 21 meeting if it ends before 9 p.m.
Of the board’s last five meetings, only one has ended before 9 p.m. The April 7 meeting was recessed at 12:08 a.m., and the board readjourned the next day for an executive session.
“It’s not really polite calling people at midnight,” Chairwoman Christina Gwozdz said of the decision. “It’s different than when somebody is sitting there in person to comment.”
Backlash over school board resolution
While the board didn’t hear any public comments at their April 7 meeting, they have since gotten backlash over a proposed resolution at that meeting.
The resolution would give Gwozdz and superintendent Frank Rodriguez the power to “waive or suspend provisions of existing policies, administrative procedures and rules” that would interfere with McMaster’s emergency orders, outside of direct contradictions that are automatically waived by the governor’s orders.
Both Gwozdz and Rodriguez said at the meeting they viewed the resolution as a failsafe in case a majority of the board was unable to attend meetings due to the virus.
Several school district chairpersons across the state received this resolution, which came from Columbia law firm Halligan Mahoney & Williams. According to a report from FITSNews, two districts have adopted the resolution: Lexington-Richland School District Five and Darlington County School Board.
Beaufort County’s school board voted to send the resolution to the South Carolina Attorney General’s for an opinion before taking action on it. That motion was introduced by board member John Dowling, who described the resolution as a”grab” and a “complete abdication” of the board’s responsibilities.
“The idea this is being done in case we all get sick is hyperbole beyond all comprehension,” Dowling said. “Questions: How long would this last? Would we get reports about what policies were waived? What criteria would be used to judge that a policy or a regulation would impede the governor’s executive order? Who’s going to decide that? I think the board should decide that, not the chair in concert with the superintendent.”
The Attorney General’s Office responded with an informal opinion on April 10, saying that the resolution “does not appear to conflict with state law on its face, (though) it may be applied in a manner that would.”
The opinion referenced the state’s law that boards must have a majority of members present to take action, though the board can appoint one or more members to conduct “hearings” on board responsibilities. According to the opinion, the person(s) that conduct those hearings must report back to the full board to take action.
Gwozdz said Thursday that if the resolution passed, she would try to implement it using the attorney general’s guidance regarding hearings.
“Those critics are saying this takes away the duties and responsibilities of other board members,” Gwozdz said. “And that’s not the case if it’s implemented the right way.”
The board will discuss the resolution again at their April 21 meeting, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m., Gwozdz said.
Clarification: Due to a board of education clerical error, a previous version of this article incorrectly stated the participants in a vote by the board’s officers to hold a second public comment session.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 5:23 PM.