The New York Post reported:

Residents of Mankato, Minnesota were required to state their home addresses during the public portion of school board meetings this month in order to address officials.

Jodi Sapp, the chair of the board for Mankato Area Public Schools, laid out new rules before the open forum on Oct. 18, including prohibiting residents from addressing individual school board members and requiring that every speaker publicly state the address of their home.

During the meeting, Sapp informed the crowd that “[e]ach speaker is asked to state his or her name and address for the record. Failure to do so will result in an individuals not being allowed to speak.”

The chair also explained that residents would not be able to directly criticize any member of the board. She said:

“Effective tonight, open forum participants are prohibited from calling out or addressing any individual school board or school district staff member. If this occurs, open forum will be closed.”

Alpha News noted that this is the first meeting in which people who wish to speak are being forced to essentially dox themselves. The report also noted:

After a man tried to comment without disclosing to the audience where he lives at the most recent meeting, Sapp said he would not be allowed to speak. He responded by disclosing which street he lives on. That wasn’t good enough for Sapp, who demanded to know his house number as well.

The man did eventually state his exact address, turning away from the microphone in an apparent attempt to protect himself against potential harassment from the meeting’s online audience. Sapp was sure to restate his exact address into her microphone so all could know where he lives.

Alpha News explained that Sapp instituted the rules after she considered “behavior by some of the members of the public” to be “unacceptable.”

She also said “crowd noise” or “any sort of grandstanding” would result in the forum being closed.

One of the more contentious issues is a resolution that was passed by the board that would require the wearing of face masks for all “Mankato Area Public Schools K-8 students and staff regardless of vaccination status when inside district buildings and on school buses.”

First, we have these people collaborating with the Biden administration to label parents objecting to COVID-19 measures and Critical Race Theory as domestic terrorists. Now, we have a school board that is forcing those who wish to speak during open forums to dox themselves, knowing that it could lead to harassment and even violence.

In this political environment, the notion that a local government institution would place its residents in this position is the very epitome of corruption. Deliberately attempting to silence individuals simply because they call out bad decisions or blatant corruption is about as incorrigible as it gets.

If this furor over CRT and other issues teaches us anything, it is that paying attention to your local politics is just as important – if not more than – watching what the geriatric authoritarian in the White House is doing. Over the past year, there have been plenty of examples of school boards abusing their power and, in some cases, engaging in blatant immorality.

One only has to see how Loudoun County handled the case of the high school girl who was raped by a fellow classmate. Instead of dealing with the matter, they swept it under the rug and further abused the girl’s father for speaking out.

Local governments can be just as tyrannical as state and federal. In fact, it is easier for them to get away with being corrupt — precisely because most of us pay little attention to what our city councils and school boards are up to. It is something I will be focusing on in the near future, but until then, here is a question: What is your local government doing?