Speaking time cut at meetings

Make it quick.

Long Beach residents will now have only three minutes to comment on agenda items at Board of Education meetings, after the board issued a new policy last month that shaves two minutes off attendees' speaking time in an effort to expedite the public comments.

The board adopted the policy at its June 22 meeting, stating in its last agenda that the rule is meant to "respect everyone's time and engage all who wish to address the board."

Previously, members of the public were allotted five minutes per agenda item at the start of each meeting and five minutes per issue at the end. The discussions about limiting their time to speak began earlier this year. At a special meeting in May, board President Lynn Gergen suggested limiting the time to just five minutes per person per meeting.

Some board members and residents criticized the move, calling the proposed five-minute rule unfair and saying that some issues, like the school budget or the fate of East School, require more than a few minutes for discussion.

"It was absurd — initially they were going to have five minutes total," said newly elected Trustee Roy Lester, who criticized the proposal during his campaign. "Our meetings go on until 11 p.m., so if you have 50 agenda items, people have to ask about all of them within five minutes. We finally got them to change it so they would do it per agenda item, and they changed it to three minutes."

The new policy states that a total of “three minutes per agenda item will be allotted to each individual speaker to address items on the business meeting agenda and five minutes to speak under new or old business. An individual may speak only once on a specific topic.”

Additionally, members of the public are encouraged to submit written comments to the board and superintendent prior to discussion at board meetings.

Lester questioned the board's reasoning for the policy change. "It's disingenuous to tell the public, who elects you, who pays taxes, that we're now going to further limit your time to speak," he said. "From my point of view, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Our policy had worked well for the last 20 years. I don't know why it had to be changed."

Lester also suggested that if the board wants to respect everyone's time and make meetings shorter — the June 22 meeting lasted three hours — it should consider reducing presentations to the board rather than trim the time for public comments. "It's not the public comments that takes up time, it's all of the presentations and stuff like that," he said. "I like the presentations, but we don't have to do three or four during each meeting."

Initially, the policy also stated that only residents of the district would have the right to speak, although that rule did not include out-of-district students like those in Island Park, who attend Long Beach schools. The board further proposed prohibiting landlords who own commercial property in Long Beach from speaking at meetings. It was this issue that led to some pointed exchanges between board members, with some saying that since commercial property owners pay hefty taxes, they should be permitted to speak, even if they are not residents.

New York state's Open Meetings Law does not limit access to meetings for specific categories of people or professions — anyone may attend. According to the state's Committee on Open Government, however, the law does not mention public participation. A public body may permit people to speak at open meetings, but is not required to do so. And according to state education law, there is no requirement that school boards allow members of the public to speak at meetings, even though meetings must be open to the public.

The New York State School Boards Association states that the commissioner of education encourages school boards to allow citizens to speak on matters under consideration, but school boards may limit their speaking time. The commissioner has also indicated that school boards do not have to allow non-residents to speak.

Gergen said the board was not violating any laws in limiting speakers' time and was abiding by recommendations made by the school district's counsel. "The board has a right to control board agendas at meetings," she said.

Lester disagreed, saying that the Open Meetings Law does not distinguish between residents and non-residents and that the law trumps the commissioner of education. All taxpayers, he said, should be heard. "I think we are putting the district in jeopardy," Lester said.

Trustee Pat Gallagher agreed, and called for the policy to be amended to include any taxpayer in Long Beach. "I think it would be appropriate to say that taxpayers and residents have the right to speak," Gallagher said.

The policy was amended to include all taxpayers, although the board did not discuss how the new rule would be enforced. In May it considered using a clock that would be visible to both the board and the audience. After the policy was amended, other trustees tried to reassure the public, saying that residents should not feel they are being denied a right to voice their concerns.

"I don't want anyone to walk away thinking that the Board of Education would not allow anyone to speak," said Trustee Gina Guma. "We would never deny anyone the right to speak if they had something important to say."

The next Board of Education meeting is scheduled for July 20, at 7:30 p.m., in the middle school auditorium.

Comments about this story? Arifilato@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.