Parent Arrested After Asking Questions at School Meeting>>>MOD EDIT<<<

I re-read the OP again and the man didn't have a question of the organizers and if he did he could've submitted it like everyone else...he was intent on making a speech to the parents and the only question he asked was of the parents, he was trying to rile up the parents not contribute to the process...I don't like scripted questions format for meetings it can be abused to control the meeting for the wrong reasons but this situation the man was out of line...

 

Yep, got it. Conservative stands up to big government - he is a hero. A liberal stands up to big government - she is an ungrateful (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) who needs to crawl back to her hole....

 

This kind of nonsense also happens in deep red states. People in power (right or left) don't like to be questioned or challenged.

 

It is a sad day when an American is arrested for exercising his freedom of speech. It is a right bestowed upon us by law. And should be given reverance. For if it is not, then we have truly slipped through the hourglass into tyranny. Elected officials, and civil servants must be reminded that they are to serve the people. They are not rulers. You don't have to agree with the message but you must respect its utterance.

 

If questions were to be submitted beforehand, then it wasn't an open forum.

No government official or politician holds open forums these days, because they don't' care what the public has to say about anything. The public isn't in charge. The public does not put them in office. Big business is their puppet master.

 

Where's ya get them rose colored glasses? They are indeed "rulers" They lord over us well enough, don't they? They make the rules, we obey them like good little serfs.

 

Guess "they" need a reminder.

 

How do you know what this guy's political affilation is?

 

How will you "remind" them?

 

There are several ways. Are you trying to suggest something? If you have something to say, come out and say it.

 

Try going into a courtroom and standing up and talking and see what it gets you. The Capital during a session of congress. Any such meeting. You cannot disrupt and claim 1st Amendment. I have also witnessed free for all council meetings and they end up with some nutcase demanding things about which the council has no authority or other such lunacy. So what is such a council to do. Yeah I wish they were all just open mike ask anything you want, but that doesn't work very well. On the other end how much control should there be over questions asked and which ones are rejected. I think the media more than anyone has a role to play, give them all the submitted questions to see which ones are being culled out, it anything looks suspicious such the council dodging issue write a story about it, report on it, ask the question themselves.

Also noteworthy is the guy was trying to give a speech, wanted to present "evidence", began addressing the audience instead of the council. He DID finally ask his question and then would not shut up. One thing for sure, once security asked him to sit down he should have sat down, else he is engaging in civil disobedience and can expect to be arrested. He had made his point, perhaps the council would have addressed it had he then sat down.. Did you note he said he had move his family out of the county, apparently he doesn't even live there anymore. Will he go to jail for 10 years, of course not. He should have made his point and sat down, expecting the security guard to go "OH GEE you're right you have a right to stand up and violate the provisions of the meeting" is a little much.

 

Agree totally. People seem to think freedom of speech means you can say anything in anyplace with impunity. It does not. The man is free to write a letter to the editor and get it published. To rent a town hall and hold a meeting and give a speech. To write a book about it and on and on. But "free speech" does not mean you can walk into such a meeting and try to take it over with your speech.

 

Wow. The chill in here is pretty extreme.

 

How did he try to do that?

 

Submitting questions ahead of time is actually not a bad way to run this kind of meeting - especially when you're worried that open-mike sessions will become a free-for-all, and no questions will get answered. Of course, this pre-submission approach does require a couple of things -- first, some integrity on the part of the committee to select those questions most representative of what people are asking and of most interest to the public, and second some avenue for people with questions of less broad interest to get answers. If these requirements are not met, either because the committee is ducking important issues or because someone attending the meeting decides to turn it into a personal soapbox, then this approach won't work.

I don't see any indication here that those running the meeting were being deliberately unresponsive to the major concerns of the public.

 

Are you one of the school board members?

 

Was his question similar to any of the submitted questions that were answered? If not, was there any provision for him to get answers either outside the meeting, or in writing?

 

I have run meetings like this. If there is no structure, there's no way to address everyone's individual questions - and most of those questions are of initerest only to those individuals. You could take individual questions until hell freezes over, and STILL be accused of ignoring some people in favor of others. And in any practical period of time, this "select random questioners" approach will almost surely miss some of the more important topics you wish to communicate.

So tell he, how would YOU run a public meeting so that (1) all questions from everyone are fully answered; and (2) no individual person could wreck the meeting if he were motivated to do so?

 

It's clear in the video.

 

Got to disagree here. Submitting questions is a way to only talk about what the the person or persons in charge want to talk about. I do not like politicians doing it or public hearings doing it. Most if not all open-mike session have a line of people wanting to talk. There is not any pushing or shoving. Shouting from the audience should never be allowed but scripted session are too un-American.

 

You seem to have overlooked something I wrote, so I'll repeat it for you. "Submitting questions ahead of time is actually not a bad way to run this kind of meeting - especially when you're worried that open-mike sessions will become a free-for-all, and no questions will get answered. Of course, this pre-submission approach does require a couple of things -- first, some integrity on the part of the committee to select those questions most representative of what people are asking and of most interest to the public, and second some avenue for people with questions of less broad interest to get answers. "

See that part in bolded letters? That's absolutely critical. If the pre-submitted questions are not sifted and sorted (I've done this, and it's not easy but it's necessary) to identify the main and most common concerns, THEN and ONLY THEN do you have a situation where those in charge get to duck what they don't want to address. Those in charge MUST have integrity, or ANY meeting of any format is a waste of time.

In my experience, what works best is to use the pre-submitted questions not only to prepare organized and comprehensive answers (sometimes hard to do ad hoc even if you know the answers), but to prepare a quick QA sheet to hand out to everyone attending, so that they can see what's going to be addressed. And at the bottom of that sheet, explain that there WILL be a question and answer period after the main body of issues has been covered, lasting (let's say) 90 minutes or whatever.

Open-mic questions are a btch for several reasons, in my experience: (1) Key issues might get lost because you can get yourself and everyone else off on a tangent; (2) Some people won't give up the mic before asking endless follow-up "what-if" questions; (3) Complex questions are hard to answer succinctly off the top of your head, it's easy to forget important stuff or phrase things poorly; (4) They're really inappropriate for large (say, 1000 people) meetings, where questions might continue for weeks - and if you declare a time limit, too many people didn't get their questions answered; (5) Many if not most such questions are really specific to one or a few individuals - "My Johnny suffers from a rare learning disability that requires specialists and special equipment, and what are you going to do about it and why has it taken so long?" Even if you have the answer, nobody else cares and everyone's time is wasted. So you get the idea. Try it sometime.

 

So you would have questioners bullied and arrested.

Remind me never to go to any meeting you moderate.

 

You seem to have some experience with hearings just as I do but we still disagree.

Hearings usually start with opening statements. The participates should already know the concerns if they are any good. If you feel a need to ask for groups' concern use any form you want for that. Then address those in the opening remarks. Why does the panel need to be prepared for the audience's questions. Are they trying to hide something? Overly controlled hearings benefit the presenters, not the audience. Opening statements should cover all areas. When the Q&A begins, if you have done a good job, people should be asking questions about the opening remarks and about specific situations.

Sorry, Flintc, you seem not to trust the "peons" and want to control them. And, yes, I expect that scripted sessions will be controlled by the panel for their own agenda.

Sorry, IMO, scripted sessions with a politician or a panel allow them to script their remarks and avoid hearing about other concerns. There always should be time for questions but it should not be controlled beforehand. "First come, first serve" should be the procedure for any Q&A. Time limits on questions are fine and quick answers are fine. Follow up not allowed.

 

I asked how you would do things. I note that you were unable to answer, and could only attack. About typical for you.

 

My experience is, if I have some time to look into the questions, understand what is really being asked, and construct useful answers, this helps everyone.

My experience is, questions tend often enough to be somewhat incoherent, and also tend to be packed full of presumptions that must be unpacked to provided a responsibe answer. MOST questions are of the "why haven't you stopped beating your wife? Are you mean or just stupid?" variety. Figuring out what they are actually asking is a challenge I wouldn't want to face in real time, because too much time must be spent unpacking the actual intent.

Dead wrong, sorry. If the substance of the question is addressed, everyone benefits. If the goal is to evade the substance, no format will suffice.

Yes. And everyone should be on the same page at that point. Pre-submitted questions define the appropriate pages.

If you ASSUME that the agenda of the panel as to duck, dodge, and evade the actual issues, that's what you will see. Nearly always, this assumption is both wrong and distructive of both communication and trust. I'm not too stupid to figure out what you want to know.

When this is the case (and sometimes it is), as I said, NO format will satisfy the public because the panel's goal is to NOT answer the questions, regardless of format.

Look, I'm assuming that the goal of the meeting, by both sides, is to communicate and answer questions. Given this assumption, what's the best way to do it? If instead, the goal is to "script" the presentation so as to evade the real issues or otherwise avoid the questions, an open-mic approach won't help. I'll doubletalk you all night if I don't want to answer. The problem here isn't the format, it's the motivation of the panel.

That's fine, PROVIDED that the answers are resonsive. If the panel has no intention of telling the truth, this wastes time as surely as any other format.