Rule in works in try to keep comments at meetings civil

By Emily Richmond

Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The Clark County School Board’s patience is wearing thin with people who are more interested in lobbing insults than in useful discourse.

Board members have asked staff to come up with a warning to potential public speakers that personal attacks won’t be tolerated.

For first-term member Linda Young, who has been the recent target of a few of her West Las Vegas constituents, “it’s becoming badgering and harassment. We want to hear what you have to say. You have good ideas and recommendations ... at the same time, none of us up here relishes being smacked around.”

The current regulation says “members of the public are free to express themselves as they see fit, and are personally responsible for their comments.”

In a draft proposal, which the School Board has asked be refined, the warning reads: “Public comment, the content of which is irrelevant, beyond the authority of the board, willfully disruptive of the meeting, repetitious, slanderous, offensive, inflammatory, irrational, amounts to personal attacks or interferes with the rights of other speakers, is prohibited.”

The language came from a 2002 opinion by the Nevada attorney general about public meeting conduct.

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The School Board also voted Thursday for a two-month extension of a pilot program that allows the public to speak following the panel’s discussion of each agenda item and before each item is put to a vote. That’s the format used by most public bodies statewide. It was also the School Board’s formula until 1996, when members voted to limit public comment to one hour before the start of the meeting’s business.

The rules were revised again in 2007 — each speaker was allowed three minutes instead of five, no matter how many agenda items he wished to address. The School Board also lifted the mandate that public comment wrap up within an hour.

School Board Vice President Carolyn Edwards, who spearheaded the 6-month-old pilot program, said this should be the final extension, after which members need to decide whether the change should be permanent.

Chris Garvey, who joined the board in January, said she believes the meetings are easier for the public to follow now that comment and discussion are grouped separately for each agenda item before the vote.

Anyika Kamal, a member of the West Las Vegas community group WAAK-UP, urged the School Board to extend the time limit for individual speakers.

People become anxious when they have only three minutes to speak, Kamal said. And in many cases a board member agrees to recognize them for an additional two minutes anyway.

“If they had five minutes to start with, and the understanding that there is no more time after that, they would be able to come up here and take a deep breath,” Kamal said. “And then it may only take three minutes.”

As a result, “They’re calmer, you’re calmer, we’re all calmer — ‘Kumbaya’ and all that,” he said, to laughter by the board and audience. “I think you’ll have a more pleasant meeting.”

But those extra minutes can add up quickly, as Edwards pointed out. At Thursday’s meeting, 20 people signed up to speak, which in theory should have taken an hour. If each person had five minutes, the public comment session would have stretched nearly 90 minutes.

“We can’t do that in a business meeting,” Edwards said.

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Middle school musicians will be the beneficiaries of the Public Education Foundation’s newest nonprofit venture, “Making Music Matter ... Las Vegas.”

The district has 55 middle schools with about 12,000 students taking part in music and band programs, but there aren’t enough instruments to go around.

Volunteers will collect, repair, recondition and distribute used instruments — from piccolos to pianos. The campaign kicked off Saturday at the Henderson Pavilion with a special “March for Music” concert by the Nevada Pops. For more information, call 799-1042.