April 18, 2020 – West Bend, WI – The West Bend School Board meeting on April 13 was a splendid example of what can be accomplished when stakeholders publicly speak up.
The school board violated Policy 187 by announcing in the original agenda that “The topic for comments must [in italics] pertain to an agenda item for that evening’s meeting.”
That same agenda violated Policy 151 by fast-tracking a change to Policy 187 “to remove ‘other items’” from public comment at future meetings that did not pertain to the agenda, because it was not first recommended at a public policy meeting.
Although the agenda was amended, per my request, to allow all comments within the scope of the school board for the April 13 meeting, they refused to remove the fast-tracking item.
After alerting some responsible, motivated citizens who understood the ramifications of such policy violations, articles were published in our local media and about a dozen public comments of protest were submitted at the April 13 school board meeting.
The Superintendent tried to be the scapegoat, but the president of the school board is responsible for creating the agenda with him.
The president tried to justify the violations because WASB warned if the public was allowed to comment on topics that weren’t relevant to agenda items, they would submit brownie recipes and divorce decrees.
However, that has never been an issue at past school board meetings, as the board later admitted.
Then, they claimed it wasn’t their intention to censor public comments, even though they had to strike “to remove ‘other items’” from the proposed change, and despite the fact the word “must” was italicized in the original agenda.
Thanks to everyone who had a part in making a difference!
Signed Jody Geenen
Please also note:
COMMENTING
London : W. Foulsham & Co., [1918]
WCI COMMENTING RULES OF ETIQUETTE:While open and honest debate is encouraged here, Washington County Insider asks that you comply with the following rules for posting. Those who do not comply will have their posts removed and may result in being banned from commenting.
Washington County Insider will not publish comments that:
- Are considered likely to provoke, attack or offend others. This is known as “trolling.” Trollers know when they are trolling, and so do we. *See definition of “troll” below. If you notice a few consistent blog trolls disappear, you’ll know why.
- Are sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable.
- Contains inappropriate or vulgar language that is likely to offend.
- Break the law or condone or encourage unlawful activity. This includes breach of copyright, defamation and contempt of court.
- Advertise products or services for profit.
- Are seen to impersonate someone else.
- Repeatedly post the same or similar messages (‘spam’)
- Include personal contact details such as telephone numbers and postal or email addresses.
- Include a link or photo that has not been approved by the editor prior to posting.
- Are considered campaigning. See also “trolling” above.
- Are unrelated to the topic.
NOTES:
- Just because your comment doesn’t show up right away doesn’t mean you’re being censored. When you post a comment it must first go through our filtering software. If it fails, your comment goes into a queue for manual approval.
- Just because a comment or advertisement is on the site, doesn’t mean WCI endorses it.
- The above rules are not intended to stop criticism or dissenters, but rather to stop those who are incapable of participating in a civilized manner.
*Trolling: a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion,[3] often for the troll’s amusement. (source: Wikipedia)