Salem-Keizer partially allows public back inside board meetings

The Salem-Keizer Public Schools governing board is now allowing in-person public comment for the first time in more than six months — but it comes with restrictions.

And there seems to be no specific plan from the board on when they plan to fully reopen their required public meetings in-person to the public.

After briefly reopening to in-person attendance earlier last year for the first time following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the board shut down public attendance in August citing "safety issues." Superintendent Christy Perry at the time blamed disruptive behavior during meetings between attendees and board members, including yelling, interrupting, name-calling and arguing.

The board has continued to meet in person, but the public was only permitted to attend or speak virtually.

Board chairwoman Ashley Carson Cottingham told the Statesman Journal this was an "interim step" toward returning to fully in-person meetings.

"We wanted to address some of the accessibility concerns that were raised or struggling to be heard over Zoom or the phone," she said. "We wanted to open up the option of being able to come in to provide public comment in person as a first step toward hopefully being able to have the full public back in the board room."

The school board attempted to hold its first meeting open to the public on Feb. 28, but the meeting was canceled due to winter weather. The change was not posted to any of the Salem-Keizer Public Schools social media sites.

"We are hoping within a couple of months we can be back to a place where the public is in the room or anybody who wants to be," Carson Cottingham said.

Prior coverage:Path to restore in-person Salem-Keizer school board meetings in doubt

How it will work

Public comment will still be accepted by calling in, joining online or in writing, according to Tuesday's board meeting agenda.

Those wishing to give public comment in person will need to sign up using a Google form by 3 p.m. Monday prior to the Tuesday meeting.

But that doesn't guarantee they'll be allowed in the door.

"They then put all the names into a random number generator spreadsheet and then let people know based on the assessment," Carson Cottingham said. "If there were tons of people and the assessment is going to be way over 30 minutes, then they would reach out to the board leadership and we would say, 'Okay, we want to extend public comment to include as many people as possible in that lottery.'"

She said accepted participants would then be given instructions to come at a particular time to speak. Speakers would come into the meeting one by one. And then they must leave when they've concluded their comments.

"Not sit in the board room," she said. "We're not opening it up for the public to sit in the space. Yet."

Is this legal?

In Oregon, any meeting where there is a quorum of elected or appointed officials is a public meeting. All decisions have to be made in a public session and they have to have all meetings in their geographical boundaries, unless they're having them by video.

The body is required to alert "all interested parties," which usually entails emails with agendas and posting them in some physical locations, like on bulletin boards. And it is required to record and keep minutes of what happened in the meeting.

But there is no guarantee that members of the public can do anything other than watch.

"You don't have any guarantee to public comment," said Morgan Smith, co-chair of the Oregon Sunshine Committee and the Polk County Counsel.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, bodies were allowed to hold meetings virtually. An executive order by then-Gov. Kate Brown in April 2020 mandated public meetings be held by phone or video platforms like Zoom when possible.

Some bodies never stopped having meetings in person, even during COVID-19, such as the county commissioners of Marion and Polk counties.

The state Legislature passed a law in 2022 that mandated that if in-person testimony is allowed at a public meeting, the public should be allowed to give testimony by telephone or a video platform.

But individual governments, such as a school board, can decide whether the public can be there in person and if they'll be allowed to make comments.

That is unless there is a hearing on something like taxes or land use. Then members of the public have to be allowed to participate.

“The only time there is guaranteed right of public access is if there is hearing,” Smith said.

And bodies are still allowed to hold public meetings virtually.

What comes next?

Carson Cottingham said the board's security team is using the in-person public comment as an assessment in making sure they "feel confident that they can keep everyone safe. The public and the board."

"At this point, the (security) team feels like we (board leadership) can start with this first step of having people who want the opportunity to speak directly in person," she said. "(We) sort of keep trying that and then work our way toward fully being open if it continues to be safe for everyone."

Not all the governing board members have supported keeping the public out of the meeting room.

Board director Satya Chandragiri has been particularly vocal about returning to in-person meetings.

"They (school board) have not completely shared everything with me, so I'm going to speak from my point of view," he told the Statesman Journal. "This is not a step forward in building trust.

"It is really critical for a public meeting to be a public space because we made some very important decisions and people feel they perceive that a lot of the decisions have been made without them. I want a public meeting to be a place where people come even if they don't have questions to ask, they sit and watch. That sends a message of full transparency."

Former Statesman Journal reporter Natalie Pate contributed to this report. Edith Noriega is a sports and education reporter for the Statesman Journal. You may reach her at ENoriega@salem.gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @Noriega_Edith.