The Cleveland County School Board was trying to take away citizen’s First Amendment right of freedom of speech but the First Amendment right of freedom of the press came to the rescue.
The School Board under Board Chairman Phillip “Bully” Glover has been busy trying to cover up so many things, one of which was being rightly called bald faced liars by a Baptist Deacon at their Board Meetings under the Public Participation agenda item that is required by North Carolina law.
The School Board had appointed a Board Policy Review Team who were tasked with updating Board Policies. Board members Jo Boggs, Bully Glover and others were stung badly by being called bald faced liars by a Baptist Deacon, but, instead of mending their ways they decided to revise their Board Policy so members of the public could not name names when they spoke to the Board under the Public Participation part of the board meetings.
So, I went to the North Carolina Institute of Government and found an advisory article titled “Criticizing Public Employees in Public” which clearly stated it was illegal to try to suppress statements such as those made by the Baptist Deacon. I notified the School Board and then wrote an article about this that we published March 9, 2017. Scroll just a few articles down and there it is.
Well, as crazy and foolish as the school board is, they deleted that part of their revision to the Board Policy. Or, maybe their lawyer or the Institute of Government told them to do so.
Anyway, the power or the press (my article as well as the Institute of Government’s advisory) won out over Bully and his crew and freedom of speech has prevailed. Of course the speaker must not use profanity or go over the three minute time limit or Bully can still call you out of order and have you prosecuted for “disrupting his meeting.”
Come to the school board meeting Monday, March 13, 2017 at 6:00PM. I suspect this Policy will be approved without mention of my article or the Institute of Government. Bully and his cronies don’t like to talk about their mistakes-which are many.
