More Censorship At Orange Unified

I spotted this on the Greater Orange New Service:

The “Missing Gap” in Public Comments about OUSD Trustee Wes Poutsma and The "Missing" Rocco Two Minutes

For the second time in less than a year, Orange Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Thomas Godley ordered the censorship of an Orange Unified School District Trustee Meeting before it was broadcast to the community. Godley ordered two parts of the June 21st, 2007 Orange Unified School District Trustee Meeting public regular session to be cut from the public showing of the meeting over the OUSD cable station. As of the publication deadline of this report, Dr. Godley and OUSD Board President Kim Nichols did not answer emails requesting a statement from them about the censorship of the broadcast to the Greater Orange Community.

In an unprecedented move, the first comments censored were comments from a citizen addressing the Board in the Public Comments section of the OUSD Agenda. Those critical comments took aim at OUSD Trustee Wes Poutsma. Godley also ordered the last two minutes of the June 21st, 2007 OUSD Board Meeting censored and not broadcast to the community. Those two censored minutes included: controversial comments from OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco; three trustees leaving the meeting during Rocco’s comments; and also cut was an uncharacteristic snide comment from Board President Kim Nichols towards Rocco at the end of his comments. The transcripts of all the censored comments are provided below by Orange Net News.

You can read the censored remarks in the rest of the post here.

What gives? Are OUSD voters children that the district superintendent is going to decide what parts of a school board meeting we're allowed to see, and what parts we aren't?

This is the second time this is happened. As our representatives, the Trustees ought to discipline Superintendent Godley (not that I'm holding my breath on that count). If it happens again, the consequences should be more severe.

Comments

[Free Speech isn't Free]

Can't someone with a video camera post the edited parts on youtube or ocblog?