HUNTINGTON BEACH : Trustees May Limit Public Comments

The Ocean View School District board has introduced restrictions on how long audience members may address trustees during board meetings.

The proposed policy, which trustees will consider again at their Nov. 5 meeting, would limit speakers to five minutes, regardless of how many topics they wish to address.

The proposal came after several recent board meetings that have lasted past 11 p.m., more than 30 minutes longer than the 10:30 p.m. deadline that the board sets for its meetings.

Those lengthy meetings have been marked by prolonged testimony from a series of speakers, many of whom have sharply criticized the board.

“I feel resentful that the audience has been given much more time to talk than I have,” Trustee Sheila Marcus said. “One person or more has been able to take more time than any of us. It doesn’t give us the opportunity to perform the duties we were elected to the board to do and have a dialogue to try to come to an agreement on a given issue.”

With the proposed five-minute limit, “we’ll hear what the public wants to express and still give the board time to conduct its business.”

The board in May enacted a policy limiting speakers to five minutes on any given issue, for a total not to exceed 12 minutes.

Before this week’s meeting, however, board President Lottie Hobbs told the audience that because the meeting was expected to be lengthy, speakers would be restricted to a five-minute total.

Afterward, trustees agreed that the meeting had gone much more smoothly than other recent ones.

“I’ve concluded too that the board has not have enough time to have a discussion,” Hobbs said. “And five minutes is generous, compared with many other school districts.”

The board room had mostly cleared by the time trustees discussed the issue near the end of their meeting this week.

But former board member Charles Osterlund, who regularly speaks at meetings, told board members he strongly opposes the proposed restriction.

“If you impose such a time limitation, you will be restricting freedom of speech. You can’t do that,” Osterlund said, saying the proposal may be illegal.

Trustees said the policy will be reviewed by the district attorney’s office before they consider adopting it.