School Board Adopts Debate Time Rules

A majority of Saddleback Valley Unified School District trustees have approved new rules that will allow them to hush colleagues, which they said are needed to keep meetings shorter.

The move, which passed 4 to 1 with Debbie Hughes casting the no vote, allows trustees to establish time parameters for their debate. It also allows them to interrupt a discussion by a majority vote and approve the item being discussed.

“It’s not to shut anybody up,” board President Dore J. Gilbert said. “Everybody gets plenty of time.”

Trustee Debbie Hughes disagreed. She said board members already have the ability to wrap up a fellow member’s statements and believes the formal policy is unnecessary. She said healthy debate is needed on subjects before the board.

“We don’t need to put it in stone,” Hughes said. “I look at [the action] as censorship.”