Public Comment at Elmbrook Board Meetings Protected

Community members voiced reason to maintain standard practice.

Thanks to community pushback, Elmbrook voted on 7/12/22 to keep Citizens’ Forum (public comment) at Board meetings and modified language to give community members more time to speak. We are grateful to all the community members whose engagement and feedback helped make this happen.

Changes to Citizens’ Forum have been in discussion since 8/3/21 and a community member shared with us that during the 10/19/21 Community and Legislative Engagement meeting Jean Lambert advocated for ending public comment at Board meetings.

In the 4/12/22 Board meeting, Citizens’ Forum at Board meetings was up for discussion again. Community members spoke out:

(1:31) “Part of your role as a Board member is to represent the interests of our community. How can you do that without really hearing from the community? Limiting time for Citizens’ Forum does not support that objective.”

(1:33) “Many of our kids are fine, but there are kids that are struggling, and parents reaching out to the administration and board members are being ignored and disregarded. Some Board members and administration routinely dismiss parental concerns as partisan issues. However, most parents, regardless of their political affiliation, would agree that education is important. Using law enforcement as a means to silence parents through intimidation [and] using media to promote character attacks against parents has also been used as a tactic by Elmbrook to stifle free speech.”