Paging Rose Mary Woods

From the Inquirer.

I always thought that the people who recorded our contentious board meetings themselves were a little over the top.

Maybe not..

Note: For the benefit of our younger readers, info on Rose Mary Woods, and her "improbable stretch".

A 5-minute gap in L. Merion record
By Bonnie L. Cook, Posted on Thu, Jan. 15, 2009

A five-minute segment is missing from the cable-TV videotape of a meeting Monday night during which the Lower Merion school board adopted an unpopular redistricting plan.

The school district says the cut was made because the speakers were out of order and it has the right to alter any tape in accordance with school-board policy.

The unedited version would have shown South Ardmore parent Aaron Williams, 37, interrupting board member Susan Guthrie as she read a statement just before 9 p.m. Williams shouted about his frustration over a plan to bus children from a narrow swath of South Ardmore, a largely black community, to Harriton High School, though the children could walk to nearby Lower Merion High.

Portions of North Narberth and Penn Valley also are slated for busing under the redistricting plan.

Williams' sons, Benjamin, 6, and Curtis, 8, live in the affected area and will be bused to Harriton if the family stays in the community.

As Guthrie told the audience that the plan's second version had shown the pitfalls of redistricting because it isolated pockets of children, Williams stood and shouted: "You just said it yourself. It's just a small group of children. Look at the blue line."

He went on to lambaste Guthrie: "You're going to sit here and say this is the best you can do?" Then he turned and walked out of the meeting, and was followed by other African Americans.

None of that appears on the video, shown on a public-access channel in Lower Merion Township and posted on the school district's Web site, www.lmsd.org. (A direct link to the video can be found here.)

The gap is about halfway through the video. The edited video picks up at 9:05 with acting President Lyn Kugel's plea for order and civility.

"If there is another outburst, we will ask that you leave, and we will provide an escort," she said. There were no outbursts during the rest of the meeting.

Doug Young, the school district spokesman, said in an e-mail yesterday that the district acted properly in excising the five minutes of tape.

"I've been advised that there was a single edit made to the tape in accordance with two district policies," Young said in an e-mail. "Mr. Williams' comments were edited from the recording pursuant to Board Policy 7 'Meetings' specifically Section G.1.c.

"In this case, Mr. Williams' comments and other comments from the audience at that time were out of order in that they were made during board member deliberations after public comment was closed.

"The manner in which the comments were made also violated Board Policy 6 'Civility' which the meeting chair, Ms. Kugel, had referenced multiple times during the meeting."

Responding to an e-mailed question about whether the board had invoked those guidelines before, he wrote: "Yes, this practice has been invoked multiple times in the past few years when there have been direct violations of the policy. The district vehemently opposes censorship, and has aired numerous comments that might be deemed controversial or in opposition to district views. The difference is that these comments have come during the designated time allotted for public comment at each meeting."

In an e-mail to school officials, Lynn Brandsma, an opponent of the redistricting plan from South Ardmore, said she was "bothered by this censorship." She saw the tape on cable TV.

"Mr. Williams did not use profanity," she wrote. "There was no motion to strike his or other comments from the record. Why are these comments and actions (specifically walking out in anger) by our black citizens edited out?"

Young said last night: "The goal is to maintain an environment where public dialogue can be most effectively shared, considered and respected by all."