Augusta County Board of Supervisors voted to limit public comment. Here's what we know.
VERONA — The Augusta County Board of Supervisors held their first regular meeting in over a month Wednesday night with plenty on their agenda, including important information for residents who wish to speak during one of the board’s meetings. Here’s a look at what we learned.
Changes to rules regarding resident comments
The board voted to change the rules for resident comments during meetings, adding restrictions to both the process of signing up to speak as well as the length of time afforded to residents during their comments.
The new rules designate that individuals must sign up to speak either by 6 p.m. on the county’s website, or within 30 minutes after the start of the meeting in-person.
Comments that are part of the online sign-up process will be presented to the members of the board. Individual speakers would be granted three minutes to speak, while those representing groups would be given five minutes. The rules also require speakers to state their name and home address.
The changes took up a bulk of the discussion during Wednesday’s meeting, with supervisors Scott Seaton and Pam Carter being the only two members to vote against the change. The rules were first brought up during the board’s work session earlier this week. Carter motioned to table the new rules until they could have a more thorough discussion, but that was voted down 4-3.
"With everything that's restricting people's ability to speak, I think this would be quite a shame and quite a dark time for the board to restrict people's ability to talk," Seaton said.
Seaton took issue with most of the changes, citing a lack of necessity and calling the new rules “draconian” and pointing out the rules would restrict the ability of Augusta County residents to make their voices heard by the board. He proposed a number of changes to the rules as presented, including a motion to add an addendum that would also allow for Zoom or phone call comments. That motion was voted down 4-3.
Chairperson Gerald Garber cited comments that he had received from the public about speakers going too long, as well as his belief that no good decisions could come after 10 p.m. His argument was that without restrictions, board meetings would drag out endlessly, which he said would be “disrespectful” to the people who had already sat through a majority of the meeting.
"I had one guy tell me the other night, he said 'Five minutes into one speech, I turned it off,'" Garber said, adding, "It's annoying at times."
One member of the public, Bonnie Chapman, stood up and spoke out against the measures, calling the vote against Zoom and phone comments “ableist.”
Residents would also be able to request an item on the board’s consent agenda to be removed and placed on the agenda for discussion.
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Resident proposes alternate use for Verona Elementary School site
Only one person spoke during a public hearing on the potential sale of Verona and Beverly Manor Elementary schools. Nicole Ocheltree of the Verona Community Association spoke to a potential different usage of Verona Elementary as a public recreation area, citing that the sale of the property would cause the VCA to cut their wrestling and introductory basketball programs without those spaces and would adversely affect the organization’s ability to function.
According to Ocheltree, the VCA is year-round sports organization that provides opportunities for over 500 children aged 4-18 in Verona and Fort Defiance to learn and play a wide degree of sports.
Ocheltree pointed out that publicly available recreation facilities are at a premium in the county, especially for indoor sports like wrestling, and that the Verona Elementary site would provide a much-needed place for sports away from schools or other organizations.
“We can’t find it, because we can't find it to try to rent” said Ocheltree.
Currently, the Verona Elementary location is used not just as a practice and match space for their sports, but also as a meeting space for the organization to help facilitate their programs all year long.
"This is our home. Without that school, our organization faces some very high hurdles that we will struggle to find solutions to, if we ever do," Ocheltree said.
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—Akhil Ganesh is the Government Reporter at The News Leader. You can contact him at aganesh@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @akhildoesthings.
This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: What we learned from Augusta County Board of Supervisors meeting
