Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
The school district is tinkering with how it handles public comments.
School Board switched to email in response to governor’s order
Before the COVID-19 pandemic closed the Clark County School District boardroom, one of the defining features of the board’s biweekly meetings was the fiery public comment period, when speeches, signs and the occasional jeer would take center stage.
But the oratory has been notably muted since the board moved to virtual meetings under an emergency order issued March 22 by Gov. Steve Sisolak. Instead, emailed public comments are now summarized for the record, a move that has drawn criticism and even repudiation in a special education-related lawsuit.
At a Wednesday work session, the board discussed how it could move to reinstate live public comment in some format, with options ranging from recording comments and playing them at the meeting to offering live call-in comments, as some other public agencies like the state Legislature have done.
“The intent of public comment is to hear the public’s voice,” Trustee Linda Cavazos said. “It does seem to me that the public and our constituents are
not happy with the way we’re doing this.”
School Board members currently meet remotely via Google Meet, with sessions broadcast live on Facebook and on the district’s website. Board President Lola Brooks said that’s one of the main roadblocks to offering live comments.
“The problem is with being able to stream using our existing technology in the board office and also do a meeting virtually with all the trustees,” Brooks said. “Other boards are doing in-person meetings to some extent, so they can overcome technology issues.”
Temporary solution
Brooks said during Wednesday’s meeting that the email was put in place in the spring as the best temporary solution. Over the summer, a weighty topic like reopening schools drew over 1,500 emailed comments, which were attached in full to the online agenda and summarized during the meeting by executive assistant Cindy Krohn.
Troy Eggelston, a coordinator in CCSD’s telecommunications department, said the district is working on a solution that would allow the public to leave recorded comments, which would be reviewed and sent to the broadcast team to cue up and play during the meeting.
But trustees also asked staffers to look into how other public agencies were incorporating live public comment into their proceedings in order to potentially follow their example. Cavazos and Trustee Danielle Ford were ultimately tasked with spearheading a solution.
The Clark County Commission, for example, relied on Cisco Webex for live comment earlier this year, a representative said. It has also since resumed in-person meetings.
The Legislature’s solution, should the board choose to adopt it, may require some board members to attend in person, Cavazos said.
Other concerns floated by trustees and staffers include cost, screening calls and getting informed consent from members of the public before a recording is made.
The district does allow for call-in comments during its periodic virtual town hall meetings, but the sessions don’t require a visual livestream,
and use of the software costs around $700 to $2,300 per session, according to district documents.
Some reasonable flexibility
“Regardless of how we do this,
there should be no type of choosing which public comments get played or get put on the record,” said Ford, adding that an exception can be made for explicit or inappropriate content.
Public comment by email is allowed under Sisolak’s Emergency Directive 006, recently extended by Directive 029.
Richard Karpel, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, said public comment provisions of the state’s open meeting laws allow some reasonable flexibility in the time, manner or place that that such commentary is offered.
“The issue is what does reasonable mean. You can drive a truck through ‘reasonable,’ and it seems CCSD is doing it with an 18-wheeler,” he said.
Karpel outlined two possible paths forward for the district: Either follow the lead of other boards and meet in person with safety measures in place to allow public access, or allow members of the public to briefly join the videoconference to give their comments. Email alone is likely not a creative enough solution, he said.
“The good news is that they’re thinking about it,” he said.