CECIL COUNTY — In the wake of the highly-attended Fund Our Future Rally outside the Cecil County Administration Building Tuesday evening, the Cecil County Council’s legislative session was sent into recess following what county officials called “disruptions” by the many rally goers who also attended the council session. Following the recess, only those registered to speak during the public comment portion of the session were allowed back into the Elk Room.
According to rally organizers, the Fund Our Future Rally was intentionally held before the council’s Tuesday night meeting to show Cecil County’s elected officials how much education matters to county residents.
“The rally was essentially a pep rally to get people to show up to the council meetings and to get them involved and to listen to elected officials and talk about the CCPS budget crisis,” said Rising Sun High School senior and founder of Fund CCPS, Allison Stoudt.
Over 150 students, parents and teachers — dressed in red to show their support for education — filled the council chambers to its capacity with many attendees sitting on the floor or against the wall. The remaining hundreds of attendees filled the lobby of the administration building and watched a live stream of the meeting on a projector screen.
Dozens of rally goers signed up to speak during the public comment portion of the legislative meeting which began with Council Manager David Culver reading the public comment guidelines.
The guidelines stated that attendees are “asked to not applaud, cheer or make remarks after speakers” and that failure to abide by the guidelines “may result in the meeting going into recess or adjourning.”
Each of the meeting’s speakers spoke about the need for additional funding for the county’s public education system. CCPS students spoke of the value that they find in the numerous programs CCPS anticipates to cut, should the school system receive minimal funding from the county for a fourth consecutive year.
“The so called ‘funding’ from the county of CCPS is a joke and no one is laughing,” said Madison Rodgers, the Board of Education’s Student Member. “It is apparent and obvious that we need more funding to help our teachers, to help our class sizes, to keep all of our programs and to help our students succeed.”
Rodgers was the first speaker of the evening who was met with a brief applause from the crowd after her remarks. The applause prompted Council President Jackie Gregory to reprimand the crowd, saying: “This is the only time I am going to ask you to withhold your applause.”
Gregory issued a brief second warning later in the meeting.
Half way through the 36 speakers that were signed up, Ryan Wasilewski, a registered candidate for Cecil County Executive in the upcoming election, was asked to address the council after he began his remarks facing the crowd.
Wasilewski encouraged the crowd to cheer and applaud twice. First when he announced that he is a disabled Marine Corps veteran, and again when he had 10 seconds left of his allotted two minute public comment time.
“Please clap, be proud of yourselves and let’s make change,” Wasilewski said.
In response, many members of the crowd cheered briefly before going completely silent as Gregory submitted a motion to recess, saying: “We are out of order.”
A second to the motion was presented by Councilmember Rebecca Hamilton and a “yes” vote was given by Councilmember Donna Culberson. The motion to recess passed 3-2, with Council Vice President Bob Meffley and Councilmember Al Miller voting against.
Following the recess, all members of the crowd were asked to leave the room and were ushered out by two Cecil County Sheriff’s Office deputies.
Dozens of people fill the lobby of the Cecil County Administrative Building after County Council President Jackie Gregory called for a recess following a disruption. Matt Hubbard/Cecil Whig
Meffley felt that motioning for recess was a reactionary move.
“There was one disruptive individual who went back to his seat, I think she (Gregory) panicked,” Meffley said. “As the former council president, I think that was the wrong move.”
Meffley noted that the situation could have been controlled “with the gavel” and that sending attendees out of the room made the issues between the county government and its school funding constituents worse.
Miller had similar thoughts on the situation, explaining that he was “shocked by it all.”
“I didn’t think the situation was terribly out of control and that’s what bothered me,” Miller said. “I didn’t think it was right to ask everyone to leave the room because we work for these people and this is the system working. This is the opportunity for people to speak their minds to their elected officials.”
In a request for comment, Gregory stated that despite the disruption, the council “fulfilled its responsibility and all voices were heard.”
“The members of the County Council take very seriously our commitment to ensuring that we hear every voice during our public meetings,” Gregory said. “Unfortunately, when attendees become unruly and disruptive in violation of our rules, we reserve the right to call for a recess out of fairness to the citizens who signed up to provide testimony. Ultimately, the Council fulfilled its responsibility in this regard and all voices were heard.”
