After a particularly intense dust-up between members of the Indian Trail Improvement Board of Supervisors on Wednesday, Feb. 19, a special meeting was called for Monday, March 10 to consider a “code of conduct” for board members. It was approved 5-0.
Now the dust has settled. Maybe.
“I don’t think anything is going to change,” Supervisor Richard Vassalotti said this week. “It’s not just the board members. There’re half a dozen people who like to come in and cause a ruckus.”
“I hope all the board members are respectful of one another,” Supervisor Patricia Farrell said. “Time will tell.”
“There was an effort to take away some people’s voices,” added three-term Supervisor Betty Argue, who was at the center of the exchange that led to the special meeting. “I’m not going to have my voice silenced.”
The code passed by the board is a set of general principles encouraging respectful interaction among board members and with staff and the public, whether during an ITID board meeting or at district-related functions.
Consequences for violating the code could include a verbal reprimand, removal of that person from a board office — such as treasurer — or termination of one or more board assignments, such as ITID’s representative to various county, regional or state boards/organizations.
Supervisors do not have the power to vote someone off the ITID board.
The code does not appear to have any real teeth,” Vassalotti said. “I feel like our hands are tied.”
However, when Farrell attempted to put some bite in the resolution, making a motion that Argue be stripped of her role as ITID secretary, a second failed to materialize.
“I can’t predict the future,” ITID President Elizabeth Accomando said this week, “but I like to think we’ll be accountable for our actions and words… We’re supposed to be the leaders. The way we conduct ourselves reflects on the staff and the community.”
While not part of the official code, Accomando also encouraged board members to be circumspect in posting to social media — which has become “its own monster” — and importuning others to do so.
When Farrell echoed those thoughts at a meeting Tuesday, March 18, however, she got immediate pushback from Argue, who said, “I don’t really think what I say on my personal page or in my private groups has anything to do with the district, and this board doesn’t have any authority to be governing that or trying to.”
During the March 10 special meeting, Argue said she left the Feb. 19 session not out of anger but because she was having a “medical episode.” She later rejoined the meeting via Zoom.
Argue attempted to frame the argument in First Amendment terms regarding free speech for her and the public.
“I was elected to represent the people of this community, and I’m going to do that whether some people like it or not,” she said. “I don’t think trying to muffle the public is a good look for us. People have a First Amendment right to speak, just as I do.”
Others on the board do not see it as a First Amendment issue.
“I don’t think anyone is trying to step on anyone’s First Amendment rights,” Farrell said. “All any of us is asking is to be treated with respect.”
“It’s unfortunate we had to adopt this policy at all,” Accomando added. “I hope it never happens again. But if does, we’re going to address it immediately.”
