Newport-Mesa school trustees to again start meetings with general comments from public

General comment periods for the public are returning toward the beginning of the agendas for board of trustees meetings in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District after constituents’ criticism about long wait times.

Board President Charlene Metoyer said she decided to place comments on topics not on the agenda near the end of meetings in December after finding that meetings were running late. Policy votes were being delayed by general comments and weren’t being made when the seven board members were freshest mentally.

Feedback against the switch, though, was apparently well-taken. The trustees will go forward with general public comments as the first agenda item after acceptance of the previous meeting’s minutes. That’s typically within a couple of minutes after calling the meeting to order at 6 p.m.

“I want to thank the public for letting me try it this way,” Metoyer said at the board’s Oct. 29 meeting, when members voted to switch back starting with their next gathering Nov. 19. “Obviously it wasn’t the best decision, but we tried it.”

Board member Vicki Snell agreed. “In looking at other [school districts] and listening to other community members, I believe that it’s probably best to go back the way it was,” she said.

At the Oct. 7 meeting, general public comments started at about 9 p.m., three hours in. During the period when general comments were at the end of meetings, speakers’ wait times ranged from about an hour and 45 minutes to three hours and 45 minutes.

Board Vice President Martha Fluor said at the Oct. 7 meeting that “this is not a public forum and this is not a public meeting. This is a meeting of the board conducting the business of the board in public.”

Laurie Smith, a district grandparent, didn’t like that distinction.

“Since the school district is a public agency … every employee and each one of you are here because of the public. That makes this the public’s meeting,” Smith, a retired Newport-Mesa teacher, said at last week’s meeting. “With this … limit on public comment you are disregarding and minimizing the voice of the very public that elected you.”

Parent Erica Roberts, who said she enrolled her four children in private school after a poor experience with Newport-Mesa, told the board before its reversal that it wasn’t right to make speakers wait so late.

“[You] should allow teachers, children, classified staff, our bus drivers and parents to openly approach you with their concerns or their praise,” Roberts said.

Board member Ashley Anderson agreed that the trustees are public servants.

She said one PTA president who works nights waited 2½ hours at a previous board meeting but had to leave for work before getting the opportunity to speak.

“We are accountable to the taxpayers,” Anderson said. “I love public comment.”

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