The IVGID Board of Trustees held their first community forum last night, and it was great to see a solid turnout from community members. Noticeably, Trustee Tonking was not present. She had given Chairman Dent 60+ days notice that she would be overseas and was surprised when he scheduled the forum to take place when she was out of town. It was at her suggestion that this forum even take place, so she and Trustee Noble requested Chairman Dent to move this forum back a few days to allow her to attend.
Even with the two requests, Chairman Dent went ahead and held the meeting without Trustee Tonking.
The event was set up as a question and answer session with Kevin Lyons, a close friend of Chairman Dent, being the one designated to select the questions that were asked during the event. The selection of Mr. Lyons shows a lack of good judgment from Chairman Dent not only due to his personal bias, but also as Mr. Lyons has had several negative interactions with IVGID staff in the past. There were more suitable people who could have been asked to fill this very important role.
Kristen Miller was assigned to ask the questions that were handed to her by Mr. Lyons. While it has been suggested she is good friends with Trustee Schmitz, her role was small in scope.
With that said, if the intention of this forum was really about getting current and accurate information out to the community, the Trustees should have allowed community members to ask their questions directly and avoid any suggestion of collusion by having questions screened by a close friend of Dent’s, and having the questions asked by a close friend of Schmitz’s.
You are able to see all the questions submitted and the questions that were selected by Kevin Lyons, and answered by the board of Trustees. The questions presented to the Trustees were general in nature and nothing new was learned. You can see a stark difference in what the community wanted to know and what the Board of Trustees and Mr. Lyons thought we should know. They should have prioritized the people who took the time to show up to the meeting with their card in hand and answer those questions before the 30 questions that were submitted in advance were answered.
Surprisingly still was watching Mr. Lyons read through the questions and placing a large stack at his feet with the intention of those not being asked. And also learning as the event got underway that Mr. Lyons was coughing and admitted he was sick. One of the attendees went and found a mask for him to wear to stop the potential spread of germs, which seemed like just one more reason he should have stepped back from this role.
About half the attendees left the forum at the break, many feeling this was a blatant use of government resources for personal and political gain as either their questions were not asked, or that they had heard enough from the Trustees. This was also limited to a two-hour event and a board meeting never has limits. This in of itself ensured that most questions asked would not be answered.
At the end of the night, one of the questions asked had to do with the allowance of community members disparaging one another during public comment. The question was directed to the Chairman asking what he intended to do to stop this from happening as it is damaging to members in the community. Oddly enough, almost like he held that question back until the end, at the 2:37:59 mark, Mr. Lyons took the opportunity to “pitch” his Citizen Academy, which he noted was paid for by IVGID and included in the training the Trustees are receiving. He seems to want to teach people about what you can and cannot do within a government body though it is our understanding he has never directly worked in government.
The team from KOLO | 8 News Now who was also on hand and shared a good summary of the meeting here.
Of note, this was a community event not to be politicized by the recall. The recall team had put a team outside of the venue to distribute educational and factual information to those who attended. In contrast, when you walked inside The Chateau, community members found a four-page document waiting for them on chairs, with the fourth page noting how members can remove their names from the recall petitions. It was the Trustees responsibility to ensure this event was not politicized and this one act allowed by Trustee Dent politicized the entire evening thereby breaking the rules of this Forum.