VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Some Virginia Beach School Board members wrote a letter to the community over the weekend that said intimidating and disrespectful behavior is not acceptable at meetings.
The letter claims some people felt intimidated during the May 9 meeting, where LGBTQ rights were on the agenda.
About 111 people spoke at that meeting. While some Virginia Beach School Board members said several speakers crossed certain lines of etiquette, they said one speaker, in particular, crossed many.
Those board members did not name the woman, but she talked with 13News Now on Monday afternoon and said she didn’t intimidate anyone.
Specifically, the letter references a comment the speaker made about requesting public information from the school board:
“At the May 9th, 2023 School Board meeting, a public speaker gave a speech that has been viewed as attempting to threaten and intimidate members of the Virginia Beach community. The speaker stated that she had made a FOIA request for messages sent by the public to the Board related to the topic of a proposed resolution that addressed Governor Youngkin’s 2022 proposed Model Policies on Transgender Students. She stated that people have made their comments a “public record for the world to see including but not limited to their employers.” Members of the public have reached out to each of us to express concerns of feeling threatened and intimidated. It was communicated to us that a number of other speakers ended up leaving without making public comment, not feeling safe to exercise their first amendment rights.”
David Culpepper, Vicky Manning, Mike Callan, Kathleen Brown and Carolyn Weems signed the letter.
“We want to reiterate the message that we want people to follow the decorum rules for public meetings,” said board member David Culpepper. “But we also want to get the message out that we will do everything we can to support those who are intimidated by other speakers. Their public comment is not only encouraged but desperately needed and wanted.”
Neither the letter nor Culpepper named the speaker, but after watching the public comment session on May 9, 13News Now identified the speaker as Melissa Lukeson.
“I sent a FOIA request this morning to identify the people who are dumb enough to put their bigotry on public record for the world to see,” Lukeson said to the board on May 9. “Including but not limited to their employers. As a business owner and employer, I would certainly like to know if I had homophobic and transphobic employees working and interacting with my clients.”
Lukeson told 13News Now she didn’t intimidate anyone.
“Just because you may have not liked the words I used does not make them threatening,” Lukeson said. “I exercised my right just as everyone else exercised their right.”
She said she disagrees with the letter sent out by some board members.
“This has been brought into the public forum for the last week and I am not going to discontinue exercising my first amendment right to speak at the school board based on false claims that I am trying to intimidate members of the public or any school board members,” Lukeson said.
That resolution is back on the agenda on Tuesday night and recommends the board affirm their commitment to nondiscrimination and antiharassment of LGBTQ youth and adults in the education environment.
Board Chair Trenace Riggs said only one other board member got asked to sign the letter but refused. Riggs said the situation was looked into and they did not come across anything threatening in what the speaker said.