Farmington School Board changes the way it responds by email
Balancing sunshine, open meeting laws proves challenging
by Laura Adelmann
Thisweek Newspapers
Farmington School Board members are changing the way they respond electronically to constituents to avoid potentially violating open meeting laws.
Concerns were raised during a rare Saturday workshop, Oct. 15, that email conversations with constituents, also sent by “reply all” to other board members, could put them in a position of violating the law.
The board resolved that its members should only copy the board chairperson and/or the superintendent when responding to constituent emails.
“I’m fine with that,” said Board Member Tim Burke. “I would not stop communicating with constituents no matter what the board decides.”
The open meeting law is intended to allow the public to become fully informed of public bodies’ actions and detect improper influences regarding decision-making.
Although email isn’t specifically addressed in the law, board members are allowed to all receive mail, but issues occur regarding proper responses.
All agreed they want to improve communication with the public, but board members questioned whether opinions have been injected when responding to constituent emails about issues that will be voted on at the board table.
“So, it looks like you’re trying to sway the other board members with your thoughts,” Superintendent Jay Haugen said. “It’s clear the way you’re going to vote on an issue ahead of time before you get to the board table … is when you get in trouble.”
School Board Chair Tera Lee said emails could be misinterpreted by other board members as an attempt to sway a vote even if that’s not the way it was intended by the writer.
“That’s the problem with email too, is that it’s such a grey area,” she said.
Haugen cited the district’s commitment to having discussions in the open, and urged them to wait to discuss issues raised in emails so the conversation takes place “in the sunshine with everyone watching.”
Lee said if a constituent sends an email the whole board wants to respond to, they should thank the citizen for the email and inform them they would like to make it an agenda item to be discussed during an open board meeting.
Burke said elected officials should not be restricted in communicating with constituents.
“The idea that a constituent can bring an issue to me by email and I couldn’t respond to them because someone else also responded is as foreign to me as speaking Chinese,” Burke said.
When Board Member Julie Singewald said the board should only respond to constituents via the board’s official email, Burke said he responds using whichever email address the constituent has used to contact him.
His response caused visibly frustrated Singewald to request a 10-minute break.
Laura Adelmann is at laura.adelmann@ecm-inc.com.
Same story, different day. Can we please move on from this petty stuff and concentrate on educating our children?
In this day and age, why would anyone use email to communicate? Lets get with the times and use carrier pigions….Agreed Erik, petty stuff. How about finding ways to better my children’s education so he learns to move out of this city upon graduating as to not have to deal with this stuff. I like how Burke is mixing things up..keeps the “career politicians” at check.