School Board Takes Show To City Hall - One Night Only

The Saline City Council chambers will be the site of a Saline Area Schools Board of Education meeting Nov. 13.

After a spirited debate at Tuesday’s board meeting, trustees voted 5-2 to hold the meeting at Saline’s City Hall, located at 100 N. Harris St.

Trustees David Holden, Craig Hoeft, David Zimmer, Todd Carter and Chuck Lesch voted in favor of the motion. Trustees Lisa Slawson and Amy Cattell voted against the motion.

School board has been batting around the idea of televising and recording meetings for several months. The motion stipulates that only the Nov. 13 meeting will be held at city hall as a trial. The meeting will air on Saline Community Television Network (Channel 18 in the City of Saline) and then uploaded to the SCTN Vimeo.com channel. The district will post the video to its website. Meetings are currently held at the Liberty School media center, although the board often holds meetings in one of the schools. The meetings are not taped or broadcast.

Trustee Holden has been pushing for some form of meeting recording for several months. He said school board was just “dipping its toe in the water” by having the November meeting at city hall.

“Broadcasting and recording a meeting provides a level of transparency that we owe the public. We’re an elected public body. We have an obligation to provide the meeting to taxpayers on their schedule and to make it available to them if they want to look in and see what we do and how we deliberate,” Holden said “We are stewards of the taxpayers’ dollar. Most elected public bodies have their meetings taped.”

Board President Slawson listed several concerns with the plan. She said any major change should wait until newly elected board members take office in January. She said the board should consider a media policy before going on television. Slawson said she thought the meetings at city hall might take on a more political tone. Her chief concern, she said, was that the meetings should be held in a school facility, such as the Liberty School auditorium or Ellen A. Ewing Performing Arts Center.

Trustee Cattell agreed the meetings should be held in a school building and took issue with a past claim that broadcasting meetings is a way to market the district. Cattell said without a way to measure, she doubted that plan's effectiveness.

The Liberty School media center is not equipped for video broadcasting. Slawson noted that the Ellen Ewing Performing Arts Center is equipped for video. She said having meetings there would be a great showcase for the district.

Holden said there were logistical issues with having meetings in the high school’s grand auditorium. And he questioned the message it sent to the public.

“The board would be up on a stage and everyone else would be sitting lower. I don’t think we want to portray ourselves in that fashion,” Holden said.

Slawson said the chairs in the city council chamber are higher than the audience. Holden said it wasn’t the same dynamic.

Slawson said she could support the motion to broadcast the meetings if they were held in the Ellen Ewing Performing Arts Center.

Trustee Hoeft said he thought having the meeting at city hall was in line with the board’s desire to collaborate more with other government entities.

“I think this (motion) is just, ‘let’s just give it a try to see if this is something we want to do in the future,’” Hoeft said.

School officials estimate it would cost $35,000 to equip the Liberty School media center with a broadcast station. The district learned Tuesday night that it’s expected to cost $6.8 million to maintain Liberty School over the next 10 years. Some investments in the building may be on hold until the board determines whether or not it wishes to keep the building open.

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