For almost 14 years, the Augusta Board of Education has gathered in the City Council chambers for its business meetings.

That could soon come to an end.

Some City Council members have raised concerns about the school board — a body outside of the city of Augusta’s control — sitting in its chambers.

The school department, meanwhile, has already begun considering moving meetings out of Augusta City Center, primarily for safety concerns.

City and school officials had the same debate more than a decade ago. Now, it’s resurfaced in light of free-speech criticisms of the school board from conservative community members and ongoing public comment disruptions.

WHY MAKE THE CHANGE?

Kevin Judkins, the Augusta City Councilor who represents the southeastern side of the city, kicked off the discussion at the council’s Feb. 12 informational meeting. He said his rationale was simple: The school board is not a city-affiliated department, so it should not use city property for its meetings.

Add the recent lawsuit from local conservative activist Nicholas Blanchard over the school board’s public comment policies, and Judkins said there is more than enough reason to force the school board out. Blanchard sued the school board this month over what he perceives is viewpoint discrimination during public comment at school board meetings.

“The people have a right to be here — more of a right to be here than the school board does,” Judkins said.

Ward 4 Councilor Eric Lind had a more tempered position: Allow the school board to keep meeting in the council chambers, but keep them off the dais. It’s about symbolism, he said.

“Sitting up a little higher shows the council’s acting as the official lawmaking body of the city,” Lind said. “The school board’s not.”

ALREADY CONSIDERED

Michael Tracy, the superintendent of the Augusta School Department, said he and City Manager Jared Mills were already talking about relocating school board meetings before Judkins brought the issue independently to the rest of the council.

“The disruptive behavior during public comment, which is outside of the control of the school board and the City Council, has been troubling to us,” Tracy said. “So we’ve been talking for a few months about moving school board meetings elsewhere.”

Not only will the school department have more control over security measures — schools are gun-free zones, while anyone could carry a gun in city hall — but Tracy said the school setting may lessen some of the disruption in meetings.

The concern is even more salient after the cancellation of the most recent school board meeting over a safety risk. The threat, which Tracy said was emailed to the district shortly before the Feb. 11 meeting, was unverified. District leaders took the advice of attorneys and cancelled the meeting while that threat was investigated.

Now, the school board’s next business meeting is scheduled to be held at the Capital Area Technical Center at 40 Pierce Dr., which is a school department-owned property.

“Maybe it’ll help soothe — maybe it’ll be less exciting for people to yell and be rude in the school environment,” Tracy said. “We don’t know if it’ll solve anything, but we were exploring moving anyway.”

AN OLD DEBATE

When Augusta school board meetings first moved into the council chambers in 2012, councilors expressed many of the same concerns Judkins and Lind raised this month. The council chambers were sacred ground and should be reserved for official city business, the argument went.

The scales tipped when Augusta’s Cable TV and Telecommunications Committee recommended the council chambers open to virtually all city boards and committees for livestreaming purposes; the chambers were the only room in the city with the capacity to broadcast meetings to the public.

In April 2012, the City Council voted unanimously to offer access to the school board.

Technology is no longer the primary concern for city and school officials. The school department already livestreams committee meetings on school property to its own YouTube channel.

City Manager Jared Mills said in an email Tuesday that he is currently consulting CTV7, the city’s meeting streaming platform, to see if it is able to broadcast efficiently from the Capital Area Technical Center.

“Once we find out the answer to this, we will provide that update to the council for their formal decision,” Mills said.

The City Council met again Thursday, though further discussion of school board meeting locations was not on the agenda.