"Tempers flare at meeting on whether to keep police in Madison high schools."

The Wisconsin State Journal reports on last night's public meeting of the ad hoc school board committee:

David Blaska, a conservative former Dane County Board supervisor, was the first person to speak during the public comment period, and he was among a handful of people at the meeting in support of keeping school-based police officers.... As soon as Blaska’s allotted three minutes to speak were up, loud jeering erupted from the audience....

“Ain’t no amount of training, ain’t no amount of special certificates is going to matter when it comes to black and brown kids, because (police officers) see us as thugs and criminals,” said Bianca Gomez, a member of Freedom Inc., an activist organization focused on issues that affect minority populations.

As Blaska attempted to capture the public comment on his cellphone, others took issue with juvenile speakers being recorded and attempted to block his view by either standing in front of him or putting objects in front of his phone, alleging he runs a racist blog where the youths’ photos would be posted.

Blaska moved about the meeting room... and others continued to follow along and block his phone.

The emotions culminated in a heated face-to-face argument between a woman who had earlier spoke [sic] in support of EROs [education resource officers] and some people wishing to remove EROs....

Here's Blaska's post from a couple days ago, "Madison school board is put on notice/David Blaska will not be denied his right of free speech" with a letter from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty that accuses the committee of violating his rights at the previous public meeting:

Our client intends to speak at the July 18, 2018, meeting. As you know, if a public body invites public comment, it cannot engage in viewpoint discrimination among those who wish to speak – even if other members of the public wish the public body to do so. At the last meeting of the ad hoc committee on Wednesday, June 20, other members of the audience heckled Mr. Blaska during his public comment and he was not allowed the full three minutes allotted him. An organized group of protestors interrupted his comments several times with signs and rehearsed chants such as “Silence white supremacy!” His ability to speak and be heard was finally halted completely by a loud and sustained chant: “Get Him Out! Get Him Out!”

I blogged about that earlier meeting here. I said: "The committee members do nothing to push back the intimidation or to protect Blaska's right to speak to the group."

And here's Blaska's post from yesterday showing 15 questions he had for the committee, including #15:

[Committee chairman Dean] Loumos, you have permitted a small group to disrupt and bully this committee for 16 months without demanding order or civility. You meet at 4 p.m. which precludes working people from attending as if the chaos wasn’t enough to deter citizen participation. You accuse the one speaker in favor of keeping the EROs in school of using “code words.”

It sounds as though Blaska was given his opportunity to speak for his full 3 minutes this time and the jeering and heckling came afterwards, providing lots of opportunity for Blaska to gather the video that will make his antagonists look awful.

On the subject of photographing "youths" and posting the video on line, I just want to say once again that I oppose the use of children in politics and would like to protect them, but if they are allowed to participate in public hearing where government officials are deliberating important policy matters that will affect the community, they cannot be insulated from exposure and criticism. Either in or out. There's no special limbo for youths who are inserting themselves in politics. If there were, there would be even more exploitation of children in politics.