Members of the public who repeatedly and knowingly violate the guidelines for public comment at Bedford Central School District Board of Education meetings are to be curbed, under new public comment guidelines the school board is now developing.

School board member Dot Fallon said at the board meeting on Wednesday Dec. 3, that she thought it would be appropriate to consider taking action against individuals who violate the guidelines repeatedly.

"These meetings are for the conducting of the board's business, which is an educational program for the children of our community;" Mrs. Fallon said. "I don't think in our determination to restore civil conduct and a more productive meeting sequence we ever discussed the disregard of the guidelines. I would like to think of revising them to allow for the denial of the microphones for anyone who demonstrates a disregard for those guidelines."

Mrs. Fallon said she did not want to restrict  meetings about items on the agenda.

"I certainly would not want anyone's views restricted in terms of that discussion," Mrs. Fallon said- "There are other forums that people can avail themselves  on in order to raise a concern or voice an opinion in the public forum."

Mrs. Fallon said students clearly are told what the punishment is going to be when they violate, their athletic code of conduct. "We never addressed what actions might follow for those who persistently disregard the comments for public forum," she said. "I would like to ask the board to give support to a motion that we won't recognize all those who wish to speak at public forum when some individuals have repeatedly demonstrated an unwillingness or disregard for the guidelines for public comment that we've established."

School board member Jim Markowski agreed that there were members of the public who should be stopped who abused public comment time at meetings.

"Every single person who is sitting here, except maybe the two most recent ones... have been hit with those 'gotcha' comments from people at the microphone

Mr. Markowski said . It just isn't fair, is what it comes down to. It's inappropriate and I think we ought to do something to and people who have done it know full well what they're doing and try to set people up and it really is inappropriate."

School Board President Deborah Timberlake cautioned that the board should not try to limit people's opportunity to express an opinion, but agreed the guidelines needed to be revised.

"Many boards do require people to submit their comments in writing before they're even allowed to address," Ms. Timberlake said. "I don't think we want to get to that point, but I do feel frustrated in terms of the misuse of public forum and what people have been able to do in the past.

"Without trying to limit people's opportunity to express their opinion," she continued, "there certainly needs to be a framework where they express their opinions and not take advantage of a situation or undermine the workings of the board."

School Board member Burt Solomon also sounded a note of caution.

"I just want to say there are serious conflicts about this because, on one hand, I've been a target of some of the most outrageous things over the years.. and I don't like it... and on the other hand, I'm a staunch First Amendment supporter, and I feel very queasy about limiting people's right to speak," Mr. Solomon said.

Very difficult task to try and walk that tightrope to maximize people's rights to expression, and at the same time to try to impose some sort of guidelines and restraints on people who don't seem to want to be restrained."

Ms. Timberlake again warned that the board had to be careful not to limit members of the public expressing their opinions. "I think we have to be very careful not to limit because being public officials, you are subject to... comments from the public and I think that there are things you have to take with the office, having a public office," she said. "On one hand its something that goes with it, but we just hope that people can challenge people's positions or opinions in a way that's productive versus unproductive."

Toward the end of the meetings discussion on this subject, Mrs. Fallon said there was no suggestion on her part "...that anyone's freedom of speech be infringed upon, rather that people just be held accountable to show respect to the board that they're addressing.

"I think there's a misunderstanding of what is a meeting held in public, which these are, as opposed to a public meeting, which engages the public in the discussion. It's a privilege that some people don't deserve, is really the point. School board members agreed that two or three of them would work to come up with some suggestions about how to curb abuse of public comment time at meetings.