A motion to add public comment periods after each staff presentation point during the Riverside Unified School District’s long-range facilities workshop failed after a roll-call vote Tuesday night.
The motion, made by Trustee Vickers and seconded by Trustee Kinnear, would have paused the single agenda study session at several staff “discussion points,” allowed the public to speak after each presentation segment, closed public input, then opened board discussion. The board’s parliamentarian and legal counsel advised that adding those comment periods mid-presentation would raise Brown Act risk because the agenda had been published as a single study-session item. After a roll call, the motion did not pass.
Board President Lee opened the discussion on the procedural change after trustees and some members of the public asked for more opportunities for comment at points during the extensive facilities presentation. Trustee Vickers said chunking the presentation and opening the floor after each topic would allow more meaningful input than a single three-minute public-comment period after the full slide deck; Trustee Kinnear seconded the motion. Interim legal counsel told the board the agenda had been published as a single study session item and that adding new comment opportunities was “not best practice” and carried “a risk of a challenge,” though counsel described the risk as possibly remote.
On the roll call, Trustee Vickers voted yes; Trustees Tweed and Hernandez-Alexander voted no; Trustee Kinnear voted yes; Trustee Salas voted no. The chair announced the motion did not pass and the workshop proceeded with the public comment scheduled at the conclusion of the presentation.
Why it matters: The board’s decision preserved the published agenda format and limited when the public may speak during the evening’s one-topic workshop. Trustees and several members of the public had pushed for more real-time comment opportunities to respond to staff presentations, especially given the meeting’s workshop format and the length of the slide deck.
No formal policy change was adopted; the board treated the matter as a procedural motion. The board did not adopt later changes to the agenda nor take final action on any facilities projects during the session.