School Board Pres. Sally Hoelscher: "We'll Give You Three Minutes to Speak, But Not a Second Longer."

Recently elected Iowa City Community School Board Pres. Sally Hoelscher seems to have taken an aggressive stance toward public comments. She cuts commenters off after three minutes whether they've finished their sentence or not. Her actions effectively convey the following message: "We'll give you three minutes to speak, but not a second longer."

Listening to what is said appears to be completely optional. Responding is impossible due to some arcane rule I don't understand.

I definitely didn't appreciate former school board Pres. Marla Swesey's polite condescension enough. Hers was a gentler style than the martial law we seem to have now.

As for asking commenters to refrain from making disparaging remarks about individuals, especially individuals on the school board or in district administration, this seems to be an effort to avoid individual as well as collective accountability, an effort disguised as a request that members of the public commenting on board policy be polite.

"Iowa nice" definitely has the potential to be dysfunctional when the public is discouraged from confronting anyone about their bad behavior or poor decision making. There's no reason that the public should be constrained from calling out individuals if they're spending taxpayer funds to hire consultants to do their jobs for them, jobs they're already getting paid plenty to do and supposedly are qualified to do.