Raeder Spanked by AZ Ombudsman for Threat

Most of us remember the PUSD board meeting from last May 22. You know, the one where the Call to the Public was clarified to apply to non-agenda items.

You may also remember that Diane Douglas tried to ask staff to review a point mentioned by a speaker during the Call to the Public. At that moment, Debra Raeder practically tore Douglas' head off, claiming she was violating Open Meeting laws and threatening to file a complaint. Apparently, Raeder didn't notice that printed right there on the agenda under her nose was the statement that explains the agenda item. It specifically says (as does state law) that board members may ask staff to review a matter, which is exactly what Douglas did.

A member of the public, however, didn't think Raeder's inaccurate tirade was appropriate and filed a complaint with the Arizona Ombudsman. After reviewing the recording of the incident, their finding was that Raeder was totally out-of-line and is formally recommending PUSD receive training on Open Meeting laws (again), preferably during a regular board meeting so that the public can benefit from the instruction, as well. That's a good call. Some of our regular speakers need it, quite frankly.

I guess working for the governor causes some people to forget how to follow the rules.

Compare PUSD's "Call to the Public" with Glendale & Peoria City Councils

We have been regaled recently by tales of "free speech" being quashed by the "new" PUSD board. On May 22, they modified (some say clarified) the Call to the Public during meetings so that it is now reserved for non-agenda items. Previously, some people (on both sides of issues) would "double-dip" and speak twice to the same agenda item, once during Call to the Public and again when the item came up.

I think most reasonable people would agree with the logic of this clarification. However, the defenders of the "old" board (which fought against enacting Call to the Public to begin with), have claimed this is a move to silence the critics of the "new" board. Depending on the critic, the new policy will "clamp down on the First Amendment rights of all of us" (Erickson) or eliminates "free speech" in PUSD (Rohrig). This drivel (and worse) has been spewed by the Duo and other bloggers in comments on both AzCentral and Newszap. Let's see if their claims stand up to outside scrutiny.

The logical basis of their claim is that PUSD is somehow out-of-step with other public bodies by limiting Call to the Public to non-agenda items. However, the facts of the matter are that both Glendale and Peoria have the exact same limitation clearly stated on their agendas. They must be fascists!

But seriously, it turns out Call to the Public in PUSD is significantly more accomodating than in either Glendale or Peoria. PUSD's Call to the Public is near the beginning of the agenda, while both cities' are at the very end. If the Amigos' true goal was actually to silence their critics, as claimed by some of those critics, placing the Call to the Public at the end of the agenda would be much more effective.

So to summarize, the Duo claims the Amigos, who supported creating Call to the Public, don't want you to have free speech, while they defend the "old" board, which opposed creating Call to the Public in the first place.

Who's the hypocrite now?