Arizona AG sues Scottsdale school district, former board president over public comment ban during meetings

Brnovich, 공화당 원, said Jann-Michael Greenburg limited the public’s ability to voice their thoughts on whether to implement a mask requirement during two meetings on Aug. 17 및 8 월. 23, 2021, 법원 문서에 따르면.

During the first meeting, the board was slated to discuss the school district’s instructional time model for the 2021-22 school year and the potential mask requirement. The meeting agenda said the event would be broken up into two parts – a “public hearing” for the time model issue and a “special meeting” for matter related to masks. At the end of the public meeting portion, the public would be allowed to comment but the agenda did not say the subject matter of the comments would be limited to the instructional time model, 소송은 말했다.

“The Board repeatedly cut off any speaker whenever Greenburg determined that the topic discussed strayed too far from the 2021-2022 instructional time model,” 소송 상태. “In so doing, the Board, through Greenburg, applied a content-based restriction on speech.”

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“The Board purposely bifurcated the agenda for the August 17, 2021, meeting to avoid allowing public comment on a proposed mask mandate and other items listed on the agenda under the “special meeting,” 그것은 말했다.

A second virtual meeting on Aug. 23, 2021, went the way of the first, with Greenburg only allowing members of the public to comment on the instructional time model matter. Only two people made comments, 소송은 말했다.

Following that meeting, Brnovich’s office received complaints about the manner in which both gatherings were held, 소송은 말했다. The school board told the attorney general’s office it was permitted to apply “content restrictions.”

“Because the Open Meeting Law does not permit a public body to accept public comment through any mechanism other than an ‘open call to the public,’ the Board, primarily through Mr. Greenburg, violated the Open Meeting Law by restricting the subject matter upon which the public could comment to the instructional time model,” 불만 상태.

The board held a regular meeting on Aug. 24, but those wishing to provide public comment were required to do so in person despite the meeting being live-streamed and no audience was allowed in person, 소송 상태. Those who showed up to the meeting were escorted into the meeting room individually.

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One parent said inappropriate materials were being provided to students.

“Greenburg interrupted the parent’s comments to claim that the comments were not true and to attempt to explain why,” 법원 문서는 말했다. “The parent correctly explained to Greenburg that he is not permitted to interrupt public comments.

Greenburg responded and ended his remarks with: “Jesus F****** Christ people!” under his breath, 에 따르면 video of the meeting. Fox News has reached out to the school district and Greenburg.

Greenburg and the district are also being sued by three parents over a “dossier” allegedly aimed at intimidating them into silence after they criticized him. That lawsuit alleged Greenburg, his father and his father’s wife, conspired to punish dissenting voices.

The alleged dossier comprises 47 parents who spoke out at school board meetings. It contains Social Security numbers, background checks, a divorce paper, mortgage documents, trade certifications, and screenshots of Facebook posts.

The lawsuit claims that the defendants “misused District resources and what should have been private, protected parent communications to the District to retaliate against Plaintiffs for their protected speech.”

폭스 뉴스’ Tyler O’Neil contributed to this report.