‘Meetings are stupid long:’ Beaufort County school board considers limiting public comments
In the past school year, the Beaufort County school board listened to parents read school library book sex scenes aloud, a former board member speak about the importance of Black history being taught in schools and students fighting against book bans — all during public comment.
Rules proposed at the school board meeting Tuesday night would allow the board to cut down on how long commentators can speak from their currently allotted three minutes, potentially shortening many carefully planned speeches and a twice-a-month-opportunity to publicly address the board.
It would also allow the board to request multiple speakers from a group appoint a single representative, possibly giving organizations with great support and those with little support the same weight.
At last nights board meeting, parent and Communications Director for Families Against Book Bans Claire Bennett stood at the wooden lectern and asked those speaking against book bans to stand up. Almost all of the 20 person audience — former librarians, faith leaders, students, parents and community members — got to their feet.
The policy changes could mean that only one of those people would be able to speak.
A 8-2 vote tabled the discussion and bumped it back to a work session before the policy change could appear as an action item at a school board meeting again. Board members Victor Ney and Elizabeth Hey voted against the motion.
“This was charged to the policy committee quite a while ago to start looking at our public comment policy,” board member Rachel Wisnefski said. “I believed it stemmed from the four-and-a-half-hours worth of public comment we had during COVID over masks.”
Wisnefski said the policy changes were vetted legally and taken from another school district “that had been embroiled in issues of public comment and had a legal challenge.” She didn’t say what school district it was.
First public comment is limited to 30 minutes and second public comment is limited to 15 minutes. However, the board often votes to extend it to allow all commentators to speak, sometimes spanning hours.
“Our meetings are stupid long,” Ney said, explaining he would also support limiting public comment to what’s on the agenda. “The entire public comments were taken over by something not even on the agenda.”
Other members like Will Smith were against limiting the public comments in any way.
Board member Ingrid Boatright said that when the time is dominated by one group it can suppress others who want to speak and distract from the rest of the meeting.
“Can we have a reasonable transparent and consistent process to make sure all of the viewpoints are represented, but doesn’t completely dominate the rest of our meetings?” she asked.
Correction: Earlier version of this story said board member Rachel Wisnefski voted for the motion instead of Elizabeth Hey. The story has been updated to correct the error.
This story was originally published June 14, 2023 at 2:00 PM.
