A2Politico: Dunce Cap for AAPS Trustee Who Defends Playing on Social Media During Open Meetings

by P.D. Lesko

AAPS trustees are presently embroiled in a public debate about, among other issues, whether members should be forbidden from communicating with each other electronically during open meetings. Seriously? D’uh. The Michigan Open Meetings Act (OMA) is clear: deliberations of a public body at an open meeting must be done in public. When a public body goes into a closed session, the reason for excluding the public must be given, 2/3rds of the officials at the meeting must vote by roll call to go into closed session, and the reason for the closed session must adhere to the OMA. So why are AAPS trustees presently throwing spitballs at each other and wrangling to implement new rules for their group that are already codified in Michigan law?

The answer is that AAPS Board of Education (BOE) Trustee Jeff Gaynor is, once again, the target of his colleagues’ ire: Gaynor is active on Facebook, posting his opinions about AAPS policies and Board decisions, and his endorsements of local candidates. He has commented in Facebook groups devoted to local politics. Gaynor has said his social media posts combat AAPS BOE meetings that appear staged. He says he is being targeted because he shares information on social media that upsets the Superintendent’s efforts to control and spin the District’s PR messages.

The Trustees, ostensibly to deal with Trustee Gaynor’s alleged social media note-passing of closed session information to the public, want to implement a rule whereby members must refrain from using social media during open meetings.

Gaynor has objected to the restrictions calling them “too restrictive” and “too prescriptive.”

The AAPS handbook of Rights and Responsibilities states cell phones are among the items the District’s students may not possess during the school day. While Trustee Gaynor is whining about having his access to social media curtailed a few hours once a week during a public meeting, AAPS students have their access to social media cut off five days per week, for over 6 hours each day (30+ hours).

One of the pending changes to which Gaynor objects states, “Board members shall not utilize – engage with, post, or consume – social media during the course of a public meeting of the Board.”

On his Facebook page, Gaynor writes about this rule change, “[This seems overreaching, restrictive and arbitrary. Email and texting are ok? ]”

No, it’s not ok: a public official may not email and/or text other people in secret about the business before the public body. This skirts both the Michigan Open Meetings Act (OMA) and the Michigan Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

This is Trustee Gaynor’s second term in office; he was re-elected in 2020. If we give the Trustee a pass on not knowing the law, the AAPS legal team, on the other hand, should be given after-work detention for Gaynor’s stunning ignorance of the particulars of the OMA and FOIA statutes. More to the point, is it really so hard for Trustee Gaynor to pay attention to the work before the AAPS BOE during a public meeting without having Facebook open on his laptop, without sending emails or texting?

If so, he is not alone, alas.

In 2017, the Ann Arbor Independent used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the server records of every City Council member. In specific, the newspaper asked for server records that showed if Council members were using social media during open meetings, or on internet shopping sites. From the article:

Public records turned over to the The Ann Arbor Independent show that during a sample of four public meetings examined over the first three months of 2017, Ward 5 Council members Charles “Chip” Smith (D) and Chuck Warpehoski (D) collectively spent more than 14 hours on Facebook and Twitter. The two elected officials sent a combined 800 page requests to the two social media sites during the same four Council meetings. Warpehoski sent 396 page requests to Facebook during a Mar. 13, 2017 meeting at which budgets totaling more than $35 million were presented to Council by the Downtown Development Authority, the Pension Board and the LDFA, among other city-controlled entities.

In 2009, Ann Arbor City Council was sued for violating the Michigan Open Meetings Act when a Freedom of Information Act request for Council members’ emails during an open meeting showed that eight of the 11 members had used email during an open meeting to secretly deliberate prior to a vote. Then City Attorney Postema was forced to settle the suit. Council members were forced to implement new Council Rules that restricted members’ use of email during open meetings.

As for the AAPS, another of the proposed rules states: “Board members shall not use electronic devices to communicate with each other *or the public* during public meetings of the board. Electronic communication sent and received by a member during a Board meeting shall be subject to FOIA.”

On his Facebook page, Gaynor writes, “[Too restrictive and unsure of the reason, other than to restrict engagement, information flow.]”

Information flow? Gaynor’s rebuttal ignores the importance of the Freedom of Information Act to the people’s right to know most everything their public officials say and do in the course of fulfilling their duties. The public has the right to know how elected officials vote, to observe deliberations, to read what public officials write in the course of performing their duties (i.e. emails), and to have access to public records that show what a public entity (in this case AAPS and its BOE trustees) does with the public money handed over by taxpayers.

Trustee Gaynor has been sanctioned repeatedly by his colleagues in reaction to the content of his social media posts.

• In 2021, Gaynor was accused by Trustees Susan Baskett and Ernesto Querijero of publicly disclosing on social media information from a closed session related to personnel issues.

• Baskett and Querijero also accused Gaynor of sharing information on social media from closed-session discussions concerning collective bargaining and pending real estate purchases.

Trustee Gaynor is entitled to his own opinions, entitled to use social media outside of the time he attends public BOE meetings, and deserves credit for his efforts to keep constituents informed about the business of the AAPS, BOE and public meetings.

However, Trustee Gaynor was quoted saying his colleagues’ proposed new rules about social media use during open meetings are “condescending, controlling and restrictive.” The rules (which duplicate Michigan law) aren’t the problem. Trustee Gaynor’s hubris coupled with a profound lack of knowledge about the Michigan law that governs his actions as an elected official, are the problems.