Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Dorau, McGinness oppose public comment policy

Credit to school board members Tuyet Dorau and Jeff McGinness for opposing the proposal to regulate how members of the public can express themselves during the public comment sessions at board meetings. Dorau argued that the proposal was unnecessary and questioned whether it could be applied in a viewpoint-neutral way. McGinness, the only lawyer on the board, said that he is now convinced that the proposal is unconstitutional.

Four other board members were unwilling to give up on the policy, but agreed to send it back to committee for review. It appears that the board will ask its lawyer, for the first time (!), to review the legality of the proposal.

Maybe this episode is working its way toward a happy ending, though an awful lot of time and energy will have been spent on it. Although it’s discouraging that people aren’t more alert to civil liberties issues, the debate over this policy may well be a case study in the value of a relatively open approach to public comment. On this proposal—like on the visitor ID issue and the Martin Luther King Day issue—the abundance of dissent and criticism may ultimately result in better policy-making. At least it offers that chance.

The policy’s defenders argue that “uncivil” and “disrespectful” speakers deter other people from speaking. Yet there has certainly been no shortage of people speaking their minds at board meetings. What do those people have that the (unidentified) others don’t?

One awkward moment stood out at tonight’s meeting. Tuyet Dorau asked, “Who wrote the policy?” The chair of the committee that approved it, Brian Kirschling, could say only that “it showed up” at the committee meeting. No other board member would answer the question. The central administrators gave inconsistent responses and had no direct answer. For all the talk about “accountability” in education, funny how hard it is to find out who actually does what. Who triggered this lengthy detour into what is likely to be a dead end?
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15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who else is on the policy committee? Some member, if the not the chairperson, should be able to tell who wrote the policy.

Jennifer said...

Yes, credit to McGinness and Durau for opposing the policy in the most recent meeting. Though this may be taking things off topic I wonder if McGinness has now changed his stance on the policy which he was previously in support of because of his pending legal issues? Supporting the policy (as he most certainly did previously) might reflect poorly on his knowledge and integrity of practice of law. In other words, if the policy is unconstitutional (which it appears to be) and McGinness supports it (as he did during the first reading) then it might affect him personally. I think we need to acknowledge this in the bigger picture of the actions our board members take and why they take them. This does not take away from acknowledgement that this is a bad policy that has been pushed forth by a few people in the community to target a few others with opposing viewpoints. Community members with personal issues should not impose speech restrictions on the whole of the community in order to resolve said issues.

Julie VanDyke said...

As often happens on issues emanating from Iowa City Community School District hall of mirrors fun house, it is Chris Liebig that has the wisdom and background knowledge of the issues to be one of the few people able to truly comprehend the complexities of what happened at the board meeting this article covers. In his blog, he identifies and analyzes the most important pieces of the story underlying the superintendent and the board's actions in a way the public media does not have the understanding, courage, vision, honesty, or integrity to cover.

Julie VanDyke said...

Part 1

From: Julie VanDyke
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014
To: Brian Kirschling
Subject: Cyber-bully is back on the attack and may be visiting town next week.

Good Afternoon Brian,

Please let your wife and Jeff McGinness know that your mutual City High classmate Chuck Funk is cyber-bullying/cyber-stalking me again and may be even be coming back to town next week for the UAY Fundraising Old Thrasher's Reunion IV show at The Mill on the evening of 3/22.

Perhaps you would have the courtesy to keep an eye on the PC board for the article published today on which he has resumed his well below the belt personal attacks on me. Though more veiled in form than other things he did after your 2/11/14 first reading of Mr. Murley and Dr. Ramey's alleged board committee developed "guidelines" he is still bullying me personally in a way that a decent human being wouldn’t slander someone they've never met. I don't know him. The three of you went to school with him for several years at City High. It's the least you could do since you allowed the Murley/Ramey "guidelines" to be passed off as having been developed by actual board directors in the committee you chair. You might also address his cyber bullying me in the PC board, Gazette, and elsewhere, because it appears Mr. Funk may be attacking me on behalf of your wife. He typed just her name into the FB entry in that same thread after bursting into a discussion that had nothing to do with him, cursing at me and proceeding to go “postal” on me, out of the blue. Hmmm, the 2 other people I was in a FB discussion with don't know your wife Jen, are not from Iowa City, Mr. Funk went to High School with you, your wife, and Jeff McGinness, so what would you make of it that he would type your wife’s full name as his last response in the FB thread he first went "postal" on me in, threateningly taunting and attacking me when I refused to engage any further with him?

Things like Mr. Funk's frightening, threatening behavior and personal attacks that began after the 2/11/14 ICCSD School Board meeting with the first reading of the "guidelines" are what you, Director Kirschling, have caused by not fulfilling your responsibility for due diligence as Chair of the Policy & Engagement Committee that let the Murley/Ramey "Guidelines" go to the board without even knowing “where” they came from. Hmmmm, you are Chair of a Committee but you don’t know where policy you supported came from. That’s weird, you said they just appeared there but I was at that committee meeting where Marla brought them in ready to go in pretty much final draft form before the committee had ever even discussed the topic amongst themselves (unless that was happening as a walking quorum in the background and in violation of Iowa Open Meeting Law). During that same Policy & Engagement Committee meeting Marla brought them to already written, as reflected in the audio, she was asked where they came from, she hemmed and hawed and then said she “thought” they came from Steve but she wasn’t sure. How is it that last night, when Tuyet asked all of the board directors present where the “policy” guidelines had come from you answered that they just appeared but said nothing about the fact that Marla had brought them to the meeting and said she though Steve had written them? How is it that no board director mentioned the method of their origin, arrival, and how she brought them attributing them to Steve originally, last night?

Julie VanDyke said...

Part 2
From: Julie VanDyke
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014
To: Brian Kirschling
Subject: Cyber-bully is back on the attack and may be visiting town next week.

Before you, as Chair of that committee, moved the “guidelines” to the full board for reading, votes, and approval into official policy, I provided details to help you find the material you needed to review the last time several board members tried to instigate these “guidelines” and were told not to by the last board lawyer. I asked you to do two things:

1) Listen to the audio recording of the Board Work session meeting in 2012 in which the board's previous lawyer stops every attempt to spin these guidelines, just like what you served up on February 11th, in every form the board directors came up with. She shut down each attempt firmly, clearly, and in great detail.

Instead of getting the audio, or telling me you couldn’t find it, you let Murley tell you there WAS NO audio file, give you a set of red herring meeting minutes from a totally irrelevant meeting that clearly didn’t even include the board lawyer present or any of the board directors I told you were in the 2012 meeting. In fact, most of the directors that participated in the meeting I described to you in detail, including participants, hadn’t been elected to the board yet, let alone in attendance per same red herring meeting minutes. You had plenty of time to get the real meeting audio file from the superintendent, or ask me to get it for you, as I had offered if necessary, so there is NO excuse for you not having listened to it before you allowed that "policy" to leave your committee. You did not do your due diligence as a board director or chair of that committee.

Julie VanDyke said...

Part 3

From: Julie VanDyke
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014
To: Brian Kirschling
Subject: Cyber-bully is back on the attack and may be visiting town next week.

2) I explained that it would not be appropriate for that policy to move to the board without you having vetted the “guidelines” personally, as chair of the committee bringing them to the full board, with the current board lawyer. Clearly, per Mr. Murley's attempt to interpretive dance his way through Mr. Holland's letter on that topic last night, you didn't do that either.

Julie VanDyke said...

Part 4

From: Julie VanDyke
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014
To: Brian Kirschling
Subject: Cyber-bully is back on the attack and may be visiting town next week.

3) I was supportive of you in the past because you had a conscience and I believed you would let it guide the justness of your actions. Clearly, based on every issue you have dealt with at the board table since your first meeting, your conscience is only an appearance but it does not guide your actions enough to require your due diligence. So much for guidelines setting the tone for the public civility when Jeff violated the EXISTING BOARD POLICY already in place, as Tuyet read it last night, in his out of order attack on me from the board table on 2/11/2014 AND ALL OF YOU LET THAT HAPPEN WITHOUT A SINGLE OBJECTION. Then you all approve minutes that intentionally omit Jeff’s raging attack on me by name, likely to protect the board from liability, twice now! And the board approved these minutes that twice now neglect to document the name of the board director who attacked me from the board table without reflecting that truth after, how is this not a conflict of interest, they were motioned for approval by Jeff McGinness, the same board member the minutes are hiding information from to protect?

This and all of the acrimony ongoing since last September have ALL been due to Murley and Chace's intent to have Phil and I kept from speaking, their goal clearly to lay the groundwork to violate our First Amendment Rights. Before they started this push to attack our First Amendment Rights, there were many meetings I didn't speak at but once if at all. What people do when their First Amendment Rights are being attacked is stand up for those rights. If my First Amendment Rights weren't under attack, I wouldn't need to defend them. Please make some decent, humane, responsible attempt to call off your, your wife, and Jeff's personal attack dog, Chuck Funk, who has been cyberbullying me well beyond anything acceptable in your unconstitutional Murley/Ramey "guidelines", off my back. Apparently only you have the power to call him off once he starts a potentially violent attack, on your behalf or at least your wife’s, on somebody like me.

Anonymous said...

Priceless. The person famous for attacks on the Press-Citizen online message boards is complaining about attacks on the Press-Citizen online message boards.

I agree. These attacks are a much bigger problem then any comments made at Board meetings.

Chris said...

Anonymous – You’re not suggesting that the proposed board policy would have any effect on what people can post on blogs, are you?

Your comment seems fairly representative of a lot of what people are saying. But how does it follow that the particular policy under consideration is a good idea, or is constitutional? Or do you have a different proposal? Is there some *law* you think we should have that we don’t already have?

Chris said...

Anonymous #1 -- According to this link, the Policy and Engagement Committee is made up of Brian Kirschling, Marla Swesey, and Patti Fields, with Jeff McGinness and Sally Hoelscher as alternates.

I agree that somebody on that committee must know where they got it from. And certainly the person who wrote the policy knows who he or she is.

Chris said...

Jen – I take McGinness’s statements about the unconstitutionality of the policy at face value. (I would find it much harder to understand if someone with legal training didn’t have doubts about the policy’s constitutionality.) Moreover, beggars can’t be choosers. I’d be perfectly happy to see a board member doing the right thing on this, even if it were for a wrong reason. People speaking up for civil liberties in the school system are too few and far between.

Anonymous said...

I am not saying the policy under consideration is a good idea. I can not comment on the constitutionality. The Board should probably start by enforcing the policy that they currently have. Insults made from the audience result in people being less willing to comment. Perhaps that could be controlled by the enforcement of the current policy. Attacks outside of the Board room are possibly a bigger contributor to people not being willing to speak and they can not be controlled by this policy.

Chris said...

Anonymous – Thanks for the quick reply. I agree with a lot of that comment. But I do think the concern that people are being deterred from speaking is being exaggerated, and that the real motivation to “do something” is that people find one person’s comments just too offensive. Moreover, to the extent people are actually being deterred, it seems pretty clear that those people would be deterred by a lot of speech that is clearly constitutionally permissible, so even the current policy can’t solve that problem.

I think people are just having a hard time accepting that there are some things the state can’t achieve through coercion—an idea that is unfortunately particularly alien in the school system.

Julie VanDyke said...

Insults made from the audience have only selectively been recognized. I am actually the person that has been boo'd at, hiss'd at, yelled at by name from the back of the room while I was at the mic speaking. I have had several parents yell at me in the lobby outside the board room and insist that I engage in what they are angry about on the spot simply because they yell at me an demand it. I have been followed and harassed to the point where, one time, an assistant superintendent whisked me away from the man that was yelling at me (hadn't said a thing to him even, he just started in) while he was holding like a 3 year old child in his arms and calling me names. I have had people block my exit from the building and try to pick a fight with me which I also refused to engage in. I honestly don't think any real "communication" is possible when people come at me individually and want to fight about something they don't like...yelling at each other does not lead to better understanding and so I won't engage in it. I have never, not even once, interrupted a public community speaker at the microphone during community comment or public comment and the videos and audio recordings of the meetings show that. The meeting videos also show multiple instances of people shouting at me, doing everything I described above. Did the board try to control, quiet, or even revoke their speaking privileges, not, they did nothing but sit there and smile. If someone can name a video or audio that actually shows anything different, please share it and I will take responsibility for it. Other than that, the rest of this is a witch hunt and, last I checked, freedom of religion was right up there with the first amendment intents as far as reasons this country was founded in the first place.

Julie VanDyke said...

As far as "attacks on the message boards", these he said she said accusations are just stories people make up unless they include the actual links to the information they are referring to...unless you have an example, quoted exactly and in context, it's just more witch hunt in action absent any actual evidence to prove your assertion.

Provide evidence including the date, location, context, and the entire thread of discussion you claim your accusation is regarding or your credibility is 0% and you're just gossiping, nothing more.