What are the limitations on Board Members making a statement to the entire Board in Open Session

[Guest David Bozarth]

Are there any limitations associated with a Board Member making a statement to the entire Board?

I know this is a very general question. I am a current member of a Board of Trustees, elected by the public to the Board. I have requested time on the Agenda to make a statement, and now am being told I will only have 5 minutes to speak, the limit placed on any guest to the meeting.

I think this is incorrect and out of order.

Can you please help me?

Thank you,

David Bozarth

[Bruce Lages]

It is certainly incorrect in that you are a member of the board, not a guest. Generally, except for reports given by officers and committees, discussion at a meeting is limited to the debate relating to a pending motion, not to unrelated statements, and the RONR default is two speeches of not more than 10 minutes each for each motion. For small boards consisting of not more than about a dozen members, the rules in RONR can be relaxed to allow some discussion without a motion pending.

The board itself can also extend or reduce the limits on how long or how often members make speak for, but any such limitations would apply to all members.

Finally, because this may well be a public board of some kind, there may be rules which would take precedence over the rules in RONR.

[Josh Martin]

21 minutes ago, Bruce Lages said:

It is certainly incorrect in that you are a member of the board, not a guest. Generally, except for reports given by officers and committees, discussion at a meeting is limited to the debate relating to a pending motion, not to unrelated statements, and the RONR default is two speeches of not more than 10 minutes each for each motion. For small boards consisting of not more than about a dozen members, the rules in RONR can be relaxed to allow some discussion without a motion pending.

The board itself can also extend or reduce the limits on how long or how often members make speak for, but any such limitations would apply to all members.

Finally, because this may well be a public board of some kind, there may be rules which would take precedence over the rules in RONR.

I agree with all this, but since this question does not involve discussion by all board members (with or without a motion pending), but instead involves a specific item on the agenda for a particular member to make a statement, it seems to me that the board is under no obligation to grant such a request at all, and to the extent that the request is granted, the board is free to place whatever limits on the statement it wishes. There is no particular reason why that limit must be the same as the limit placed on guests, but there is also no reason it could not be.

[Rob Elsman]

The proper motion to make is a Request for a [Miscellaneous] Privilege, RONR (12th ed.) 33:22.  Surprisingly, in this case, the motion cannot be amended, so other members will not be able to apply a subsidiary motion to Amend (or any other subsidiary motion, for that matter).