WeHa School Board Clashes Along Party Lines Over Public Comments

WEST HARTFORD, CT — A proposal to further regulate public comments at local school board meetings is drawing the ire of the GOP in town amid calls it hampers public input to education policy makers.

The matter in question is listed as a bylaw revision to West Hartford Board of Education policies that deal with meeting conduct/public comments.

School board members May 16 conducted a first reading of the policy, with a decision on the policy change coming at a later meeting.

Specifically, the draft revisions would:

• Limit public comments on general items of interest to one meeting per month (the first) and at the end of that meeting.

Currently, general public comments can be done at both the first and second regularly scheduled school board meetings of a month, including the beginning of a meeting.

• All comments, whether on agenda items or general items, remain at 3 minutes.

• No more than seven individuals will be allowed to speak about a specific topic, whether it is an agenda item or a general item of interest. Currently, the amount of people being allowed to speak is 10.

The West Hartford Republican Town Committee blasted the school board for the proposed revisions, specifically targeting Democratic school board chairperson Lorna Thomas-Farquarson and Democratic school board Secretery Jason O. Chang.

Both serve on the school board's policy subcommittee with Republican Gayle Harris, giving Democrats a 2-1 edge on anything that committee brings to the full board.

At the May 16 first reading of the policy, Harris blasted the new restrictions, saying she still doesn't understand why the change is even being proposed since the existing one was approved in November 2022.

"I did not, in any way, agree to this policy," Harris said of the subcommittee meeting in the lead-up to the last school board meeting. "I was entirely blindsided by this.

"I was entirely blindsided with what was going to happen at that meeting. I'm not going to go back on that. Because that's what happened. I had absolutely no idea that you and Jason were going to try and revise a policy that we worked hard on in November."

Harris and Republicans accused the Democrats on the school board of limiting public input as much as possible, possibly to avoid criticism from the public.

"They want to restrict and regulate public comment to such a degree that it ends up being meaningless," West Hartford's GOP wrote. "Meanwhile, if a Republican-controlled board proposed this, it would already be all over the media and people would be out with their pitchforks."

Republican school board member Ethan Goldman said a fair compromise would be to keep the non-agenda comments to one meeting, but do so at the beginning of the meeting rather than the end.

Democratic school board member Clare Neseralla pitched such an idea earlier.

Goldman said most speakers before the school board value the chance to speak to board members and it is unfair to make them wait until the end of what can be a very long meeting.

"I have to believe in all cases ... they were much happier to be able to have their views expressed and to be able to explain what their concerns were at the beginning of the meeting when people were focused and listening than what it would be at the end," Goldman said.

Thomas-Farquarson said if the school board so desired, it could suspend the rules and allow for non-agenda comments at the start of a meeting.

Harris, though, rebuked that notion, saying a board could still squelch public comments because it would be deciding what issues are spoken before the board.

"I don't think thats a good answer because it would be entirely dependant on what you want to hear about and that's not the way a democratic process works," Harris said.

"You should be able to sit through 12 minutes to 15 minutes of public comment, even if its difficult."

Chang, though, claimed the changes are in line with other school boards and are meant to priortize agenda-item speakers over non-agenda speakers.

He also said Sunshine Laws mean a school board must conduct business in public, but it's not required to provide any public comments at all.

"Just because it is in the public does not, automatically, guarantee the right to speak at a meeting," Chang said.

"The task of the board of education is to carry out our deliberative process in the light of day, which is as it should for democratic societies."

"It is not about hindering or stopping public communication," Thomas-Farquarson said. "There are no steps moving toward, in totality, eliminating public communication."

She said the policy will be subject to a second reading, where it could be tweaked is members agree to do so, at a later meeting. The school board next meets Tuesday, June 6.

For the proposed policy revision, click on this link.