The school gym belongs to the community and not the superintendent. Update to this previous story.
Via The Missoulian:
No one knew how many people would turn out Thursday to comment on a proposed letter from the Ravalli County commissioners seeking to keep Syrian refugees from settling here.
“I was guessing maybe 100,” said Commissioner Jeff Burrows.
The meeting turned out to be the largest county commission meeting Burrows has ever seen.
When more than 500 people packed the commissioners’ meeting room, the stairway leading to it and the outside steps at the county’s administrative building, the commission called the Hamilton School District for help.
“In hindsight, we should have postponed the meeting,” Burrows said.
The school district offered the auditorium at the middle school, but when that space wasn’t large enough, the meeting moved into the school’s gym.
“We ended up putting them in a bad situation when all they were doing was trying to accommodate us,” Burrows said.
The meeting was often loud, and some students went home and told their parents about what happened. There were also reports that some people carried guns.
Parents called the school district to complain Friday.[…]
Ravalli County Sheriff Chris Hoffman said a commissioner had asked him to attend the meeting a couple of days before it occurred. When Hoffman saw the number of people, he asked the undersheriff and lieutenant to join him.
“I think if I had been consulted, my suggestion would have been to postpone the meeting and wait for a more appropriate time,” Hoffman said. “That would have allowed for more time to arrange a better venue that, obviously, didn’t coincide with school being in session.”
Hoffman said he and the other law enforcement officers did not see any weapons at the meeting.
“There were lots of empty holsters,” he said. “People were in compliance with the law.”