If you’re on your way to address members of the UC Board
of Regents at their public comment period this morning, don’t
bother. The public comment period, the only time the public has any
opportunity to address the board, is a colossal waste of time.
Instead, get a coffee, read the paper and take a quick nap. Your
time will be better spent that way. And the regents are likely to
spend the public comment period doing the same.
The period is a 20-minute session scheduled at the beginning of
each board meeting, and it is also the only amount of time the
board allocates to hear the public’s opinion each
meeting.
According to the board’s meeting agenda, each speaker will
receive three minutes to speak and two or more people may pool
their time so one representative can speak for seven minutes. But
more often, that time gets trimmed down to only 20 or 30 seconds
and most of the people who show up to speak never get a chance to
address the board.
With the public comment period in its current form, the
students, faculty and staff of the University of California have no
effective way of addressing their governing board.
The regents open their meetings to public input for 20 minutes
every other month, for a total of 2 hours per year. Sometimes the
board graciously extends the comment period by 10 minutes or
so.
But though people come from across the state to speak to the
regents, few regents even have the courtesy to show up to comment
period on time and listen attentively.
While members of the community who care passionately about the
topic they have come to discuss speak, regents meander in late,
coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other. They whisper and
giggle with the regent sitting beside them, nap and sometimes
don’t even bother to show up.
One former regent told the Daily Bruin in 2004 that he did not
pay much attention to the students who spoke during the public
comment period.
Former Regent Ward Connerly, who spearheaded the campaign that
resulted in the ban on affirmative action in California and at the
UC, has described the comment period as “one minute per
student saying the same thing over and over again” and said
it “has no effect.”
Other regents have not come out and told the Daily Bruin that
they believe the public comment is unimportant, but their actions
speak for themselves.
Though the Daily Bruin Editorial Board has in the past been
critical of the small amount of time the UCLA chancellor meets with
students, which is one hour per quarter, he actually listens to the
students he speaks with or at least goes to the trouble to appear
attentive.
The system by which the public can address the regents needs to
be changed: It should be lengthened so everyone who has signed up
can speak and guests have enough time to make their points.
What Connerly said is true ““ one minute per speaker is not
enough. But even if it were, the regents shouldn’t ignore
those speakers by using the time to catch up on the latest
gossip.
They should, however, expand the comment period so speakers have
time to really tell them something.
If they can’t do that, they can at least make it a point
to be present and attentive for the few times per year that the
public gets to speak with them face to face.