By: Diane Benjamin

I lost trust in Tri-Valley a few years ago when they paid off some bonds and then put another bond issue for the same amount on the ballot. Evidently TV taxpayers don’t ever want to see their property taxes decrease because they approved it. In the next few years they are plotting to do it again. Only 1 person showed up to protest the tax levy this year, don’t complain when you get your property tax bill this spring.

The next meeting is February 21st.

This item was on the January agenda for the Tri-Valley School Board: https://go.boarddocs.com/il/trivalley3/Board.nsf/vpublic?open

In case the text is too small to read: Notification by a visitor to address the Board shall be submitted in writing to the Superintendent three (3) business days prior to the meeting stating the specific request, presentation topic or proposal.

That Public Comment Policy is obviously illegal since the agenda isn’t published 3 days in advance and the Open Meetings Act says nothing about stating a specific reason for speaking. 

Two attempts to have State’s Attorney Erika Reynolds simply send them a letter failed to get ANY response from her or her office.

Attempts to get responses from school board members also failed, but the Superintendent did respond. He claims the sentence quoted above will be deleted. Since that is the entire Public Comment policy, what will replace it? See this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScclb7dEpCunR-usHihlJA180rKWTh_tvRxS2vRRePWB7GTYQ/viewform

Nothing in this response says WHY it was on the agenda!

Since many of you will have trouble reading that:

Hello Diane, 

Thank you for the clarification. Today we have reviewed Board Policy 2:230 (“Public Participation at School Board Meetings and Petitions to the Board”) and all changes made to that section board policy back through 2020. The statement you are concerned with, which includes the requirement for 3 days notice to make public comment, has been part of Tri-Valley’s policy language prior to 2020. However, it has not been the board’s practice for the last several years. Anyone who attends a board meeting may sign up to make public comment when they arrive that night at the meeting. For planning purposes, we ask if people plan to make public comment that they consider notifying the board in advance, but we do not require it nor use it to limit those who wish to speak. This has been the board’s practice and no changes have been made to that recently. 

I have spoken today with our board president, Brian Myers, concerning this part of Policy 2:230 and we are in agreement that the statement (the sentence beginning with “Notification by a visitor to address the Board…”) should be removed from the policy. This would bring our Board Policy language up-to-date and match the working procedures of the board. We plan to include on the next agenda an action item to remove this statement from the policy. 

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. 

Sincerely, 

Benjamin Derges
Superintendent
Tri-Valley CUSD #3
bderges@tri-valley3.org
(309) 378-2351
(309) 378-2223 fax