Stuck outside, dozens protest COVID-19 restriction at Manatee school board meetings

As the school board met on Tuesday evening, addressing a small audience inside the board chambers, a crowd of approximately 30 people gathered outside the building in downtown Bradenton. There was room for 10 more people inside, a district employee said.

“We’re going in together,” the crowd chanted, as four Bradenton police officers stood at the entrance.

“It’s a global pandemic,” the district’s chief of safety and security, Paul Damico, said in response.

After closing in-person meetings to the public last March, in the early stages of the pandemic, Manatee reopened board meetings with a capacity of 15 guests last August. The guideline was meant to promote social distancing, but some people are now calling it a violation of their right to attend public meetings.

“Persons wishing to speak may be asked to wait outside until the appropriate portion of the meeting should all of the seats inside the board room be filled,” the district says on its website.

Glen Gibellina, a community activist and a regular at school board meetings, said the restrictions violated Florida Statute 286.011, the law on public meetings and records. Also known as Florida’s Government in the Sunshine Law, the statute says that board meetings should be “open to the public at all times.”

He created a “notice to cease and desist,” promising to file a complaint with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office and the state attorney if accommodations weren’t made. The school board needed to find a larger venue or open space on the building’s second floor, Gibellina said.

The Manatee County Commission has been holding meetings at the Bradenton Area Convention Center during the pandemic, Gibellina noted.

He then gathered signatures from the people waiting outside and delivered his notice to board members during the period for public comment. Gibellina and other visitors were able to enter the board room and make a three-minute comment before having to leave the chambers and rejoin their peers outside.

“We’re entitled to listen to the whole meeting — end of story,” Gibellina said. “The whole meeting from gavel to gavel. It’s not come in, say your three minutes and get out of the building. They can’t do that.”

In response, the school district’s attorney said that board members were actually going beyond the state’s current requirements for public meetings. Mitchell Teitelbaum pointed to several executive orders that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gov. Ron DeSantis issued Order 20-69 on March 20, suspending the law that requires public boards to gather in person. It said that local government bodies could use technology, “such as telephonic and video conferencing,” to conduct their public business.

The governor then extended his order through Nov. 1, meaning the school board could still hold all-virtual meetings, Teitelbaum said. To balance their interest in both transparency and safety, they decided to reopen with a limited capacity and other safety measures, he continued.

“There is no intent of exclusion whatsoever,” Teitelbaum said. “However, we are in a pandemic. Being in a pandemic limits what we can and cannot do.”

Room for more

While it allowed for virtual meetings, the governor’s order “does not waive any other requirement under the Florida Constitution and ‘Florida’s Government in the Sunshine Laws,’” including the statute cited by Gibellina.

Teitelbaum said the board followed that law and made the meetings accessible through a live broadcast on television and the district website. Public comments were accepted in person and by email, and there was no legal requirement to move the venue, he noted.

“We are at capacity,” he said. “It’s no different than any venue. We’re not going to compromise safety.”

There was, however, a period when open seats went unfilled on Tuesday evening. While the meeting started at capacity, some seats remained vacant — at least temporarily — as people began to leave, board Chair Gina Messenger said later in the meeting.

“I really want to apologize to anyone who was not allowed into the room when there were seats in the room,” she continued. “That was not something I was made aware of until somebody came in and said something. I appreciate that. I don’t know why it happened in the way that it did, but I will say I will look into it.”

Pandemic or not, they want in

Standing outside for several hours, a group of people listened to the meeting with a phone and a Bluetooth speaker on Tuesday night. The statements from district employees and board members did little to ease their concerns.

“We should not be stuck out in the street,” Gibellina said.

A group of mothers was there to oppose the district’s mask requirement, while others spoke on the capacity issue. Many people gathered to continue their support of Lincoln Memorial Academy and its prior leadership.

The school board revoked Lincoln Memorial’s charter and took over its campus in July 2019, citing concerns with its finances and principal, but some believe the evidence was fabricated or misleading.

Kevin Jackson, an employee of Lincoln Memorial, is among the people who continue to push for answers. Watching the back-and-forth arguments between residents and district employees, Jackson said he gave up on trying to enter Tuesday’s board meeting.

If students could sit in small classrooms where distancing was often impossible, then residents could sit in public meetings of the school board, he said.

“Sounds to me like they’re breaking the law with peaceful, law-abiding citizens who just want to attend a meeting at our school district,” Jackson said.

Board members weigh in

The district maintained that all laws were respected, especially since residents had the ability to enter for public comment and to watch a live stream outside of the chambers.

Regardless, as the meeting neared its end around 9 p.m., two board members alluded to possible changes in the future.

“We should not have people standing outside,” said Charlie Kennedy, the board’s vice chair. “We should find a way to make sure we can accommodate everybody and do so in a safe manner, but in a way that everybody feels welcome and everybody feels like their voice can be heard.”

“Seating is limited because of COVID-19 and we’re trying to adhere to the guidelines as best as we possibly can for the reopening of schools,” Messenger followed. “But I think that we need to make sure anybody that can fit in here, we want them in here. I want them in here.”

Messenger said she would always enforce the board’s guidelines, and those rules could change with a majority vote of its members. As of Tuesday evening, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommended the use of social distancing and masks to protect against COVID-19.

The governor’s emergency order — which allowed some flexibility for local meetings — was set to expire in less than a week. It was not immediately clear how that change would affect the school board’s current rules, if at all.

The Tallahassee City Commission, for example, announced that it would resume in-person meetings on Wednesday, but the capacity would be limited to promote social distancing, according to a news release.

“Overflow space will be set up on the second floor of City Hall, if needed,” the release states.

Some point to discrimination

In her closing statements on Tuesday night, the board chair also responded to accusations that Manatee was treating some people differently than others.

Standing outside of the district building, several people compared Tuesday’s meeting with another meeting that took place in February 2019. Facing a vote on whether to change the name of North River High School to Parrish Community High School, the board held its meeting at the convention center to house a large crowd of Parrish residents.

The school board accommodated a group of largely white men and women last year, while the group of largely Black and Hispanic residents was told to wait outside or watch from home on Tuesday night.

But the situations were different in several ways, Messenger argued. The change of venue was sparked by “hundreds, if not thousands” of people who signed a petition, and it then took months for a county commissioner to arrange the switch, she said.

“It’s not a simple snap of your finger and it’s going to happen. It takes coordination. It takes feedback, knowing the community is going to attend. It takes working with the county commission, and they had their own meeting today. It takes a lot of different pieces to make that a possibility,” Messenger concluded.

The school board’s next public meeting is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. on Nov. 10. Meetings are usually held at the School Support Center, 215 Manatee Ave. W. in Bradenton.

Board meetings are also broadcast on Spectrum Channel 646 and Frontier Channel 39, along with www.mstv.us.

This story was originally published October 28, 2020 at 8:21 AM.