Public comments on LCC public comments

Presenter: At the Lane Community College Board of Education, the Ad Hoc Committee on Public Comment shares its recommendations. On May 6, Kevin Alltucker:

Kevin Alltucker: Public comment only works if people feel heard and the board can still do its job. Those were kind of the balancing values that we went into our work with. So these recommendations—there’s nine of them—they reflect that balance and they’re grounded in protecting First Amendment rights, meaningful engagement, student voices, and effective governance.

So importantly, some of these elements are already embedded in our Board Policy 2345, and are being reaffirmed here. For example, like time limits (the board has the opportunity to adjust time limits) and expectations for orderly participation.

Others on the list are more forward-looking suggestions, such as an expanded written testimony process and additional structure around how comment is managed.

Taken together, they reinforce what’s working and thoughtfully extend it with a goal of ensuring broad access, fair process, and a board environment, that can function effectively.

And I’d like to point out, it was interesting to me during the process that ORS has no requirement for public comment for school boards, which, um, okay, great. We have a board policy. It’s a foundational value of the board and the college.

And so these recommendations by no means are any suggestions to erode that, in any way. So again, we try to balance this idea of a healthy public comment process with the ability of the board to complete its business.

So No. 1 is: Maintain the current individual speaking time limits for public comment, and that is three minutes per speaker under standard circumstances, that means when there’s less than 20 speakers (as we had tonight), and adjusting that to two minutes per speaker when 20 or more individuals are signed up to speak.

No. 2. Establish a time cap for public comment during public hearings with the full board determining the appropriate overall time limit. Again, that’s already in our Board Policy 2345.

No. 3. Consider randomizing the order of public speakers to ensure fairness and equity in the speaking process.

No. 4. Discourage serial reading of identical or substantially similar statements during public comment while maintaining individual’s rights to express their perspectives.

So again, I think the key word in that No. 4 is discourage.

No. 5. Individuals may submit written testimony up to 24 hours in advance of board meetings in a digital format to this particular email address, and those comments will be included in the board packet.

No. 6. Written testimony submitted for the board’s consideration will be acknowledged during the meetings by reading out the number of submissions and the names of those who submitted testimonies.

No. 7. Require individuals to sign up only themselves for public comment while ensuring appropriate accommodations are available as required under ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) guidelines.

No. 8. Track public comments and any responses provided by the college or board supporting transparency and accountability in the process.

And finally: No. 9. Reinforce expectations for respectful discourse by affirming the board’s chair’s authority to intervene when necessary, clearly stating the speakers may be ruled out of order for personal threats or threatening behavior, and encouraging professionalism in public comment while upholding First Amendment protections.

That’s the list of nine suggestions that came out of the subcommittee.

Presenter: For the Lane Community College Employees Federation, Tami Hill:

Tami Hill: I’ve read the ad hoc committee’s recommendation in the board packet regarding public comment. I’ve also attended the ad hoc meetings.

I want to express my concerns about the proposed changes that limit public comment time. Public comment is one of the few direct avenues the community has to engage with its elected representatives. Any changes that limit when, how, or who can speak risk the narrowing of access and in doing so, undermine the very purpose of a community college, which is to serve the public.

Community college belongs to its students, staff, and the broader public. Policies that constrain their ability to be heard send a wrong message about whose voices are valued in institutional decision making.

I urge the board to retain the current public comment process (1) (which is No. 1 on the list) and disregard (2) and (3) which (as they stand) place restrictions on public comments.

The existing structure allows for meaningful participation and should be preserved to ensure continued transparency, access, and community engagement. Thank you.

Presenter: During public comments, Wendy Simmons:

Wendy Simmons: I’m Wendy Simmons and I’m speaking in solidarity with my faculty colleagues. I’m speaking tonight about recommendations to the board from the Ad Hoc Committee on Public Comment.

I’m very concerned about one of the recommendations: the idea of placing a time cap on public comment. If we could get back to the times when we felt heard, valued, and listened to; if we could have true collaboration between faculty and administration; if there was transparency; there would be far less public commenters.

We come because this is one of the only places we can share our knowledge and wisdom, where we can be heard, and do what’s right by our students.

And this college, what we say is important. We send emails, but it sounds like not every board member reads them. So we come here where we only have three minutes and many times just two to give public testimony. And now you want to place a time cap on public comment.

You are elected officials and we expect that you would want and encourage public comment.

Board Policy 2200 says, ‘The Board of Education governs on behalf of the citizens of Lane Community College in accordance with the authority granted to it by the state law,’ and that the board is committed to fulfilling its responsibility to, among others, represent the public interest and assure the Board operates in an open, accessible, welcoming spirit and maintains a culture that support Lane Community College’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Public comments are essential to these meetings, to the work that you do, and are essential to a democratic process.

It’s amazing to me how many people have come to make public comments in the last couple of years. This is not something anyone does casually when someone walks up to this microphone. It takes careful preparation and planning and like you’ve heard, energy, nerves, and a lot of courage.

Public comment is just as—if not more important than—other parts of these board meetings. If we felt included in important decisions that affect us, our students, and our classified professional colleagues, respectfully, we wouldn’t make our long work days even longer by coming to these meetings to provide testimony.

I urge you not to limit one of the few avenues we have to make our voices heard, to share our knowledge, to express our concerns, and help shape a future that keeps our students at the core of all we do. Thank you. 

Amy Beasley: I’m Amy Beasley, here in solidarity with my LCCEA faculty colleagues.

I’d like to talk to the board about the illusion that the campus community participates in critical decisions, that our input is sought out and considered, and that there is a mechanism in place to ensure our participation moving forward.

I think you’ve been told that that is happening, but that is not happening.

For example, over the past year, the administration implemented thought exchanges and listening sessions. As my colleague Paula Thonney articulated in her April 27 email to you, these were very superficial interactions. They cannot be considered meaningful input from the campus.

In their recent recommendation to cut programs, the administration maintains that they did a careful review of those programs. Yet this was clearly a surprise to the program’s coordinators.

How is it even possible to conduct such a review without the program coordinator even knowing about it, much less participating in the process?

The coordinators’ thoughtful emails and public comments revealed how they might have helped with these decisions, including raising very serious questions about the data and the process, had they been asked.

I am also reminded of President Olson’s comments urging you to consult with students who know as well as anyone how effectively we’re preparing them for their futures. But we don’t even learn of these things until after the narratives are solidly in place and the opportunity for deliberation has passed.

We do what we can. We send our emails. Even though some board members have stated very clearly that they ignore those, we try to cram everything we have to say into three or even two-minute comments and then hear board members complain that public comments get too long, interfering with the board’s ability to do its work.

Respectfully, as elected officials, I’d say hearing from the public is absolutely central to your work.

Meanwhile, board meeting agendas are populated by speakers from administration. You have the time to ask the VPs as many questions as you need to, but there is quite simply no mechanism for you to hear from the rest of the campus in any real way.

Here are the things I hope. I hope that you consider our knowledge, our experience, our expertise to be indispensable, that you will not want to make those decisions without hearing from those of us who are in the classrooms helping students, making our programs and this campus run.

I therefore hope that when these big decisions need to be made, that you will carve out space for us because there is no other way you will hear what we have to contribute.

To that end, I hope you’ll include us in agenda items where the decisions are being debated when you’re asking questions and working through the issues. I hope you’ll direct the president to truly listen and participate meaningfully in our shared governance system, which is in place for this very reason.

I hope you’ll insist on evidence that there’s been meaningful participation from the broader campus community, and refuse to move forward when you don’t have the depth of information you need, and you aren’t getting clear and satisfying answers to your questions.

I hope you’ll read your emails and that you’ll remember what public comments mean for someone in an elected position with a duty to represent the public.

I hope you agree that our participation matters, but if you do, you’ll need to make that happen. Thank you.

Presenter: Public comments at LCC are about public comments as the ad hoc committee delivers its recommendations. The Board of Education will continue its discussion.