COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – The Coeur d’Alene School District says a political group had permission to hold a town hall event at Coeur d’Alene High School last Saturday through the district’s facility use agreement plan, but only because the group said the event was open to the public.
The district posted a news release Wednesday, as controversy swirls over the town hall event.
A woman who protested what lawmakers were saying on stage was dragged from the event by private security guards; Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris stood by and appeared to direct the security guards to remove her from the event.
In the statement, the school district says the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee applied to use the high school for a “Legislative Town Hall.”
The district says the schools are available to community groups to hold public events “as long as the nature of those events is consistent with the requirements listed in the district’s Facility Use Agreement.“
That district says it granted the request because the application stated the event was open to the public and that the “public building venue would provide a neutral location where local residents and their elected officials could engage openly with one another.”
The statement also says, “At no point was the KCRCC’s town hall…represented to the district as a private meeting. Had it been presented as such, the district would have denied the request.”
Brent Regan, chairman of the KCRCC, said the event was intended to be private, saying on Twitter/X: “At the beginning of the town hall the attendees were advised that this was a private event, and any disruptors would be trespassed from the premises.”
“The behavior displayed at the town hall does not align with the district’s expectations for respectful and constructive public discourse,” the district’s statement says. “The conduct of many adults at the meeting does not model productive civic engagement for our students, our community, our state and beyond.”
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