Supervisors made headway in reining in meeting disruptions — or did they?

Back in January, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors tried and failed to tighten its public participation rules in an effort to quell the shouting matches that often break out and disrupt meetings.

The proposal appeared to be dead in the water after failing in a split vote, with the supervisor who’d brought forth the changes saying it wouldn’t be resubmitted for consideration.

That is, until last month, when Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer enacted stricter rules while presiding as chair during the July 16 meeting that she says resulted in the meeting running smoothly.

“The rise in some pretty vicious incivility and toxicity has made it really difficult for a lot of members of our community to participate and … to feel that they could come down and have their voice heard in the way decisions are made,” Lawson-Remer later told me on a phone call. “That’s really the point of these board meetings, is to be a public forum.”

I’ve written about — and commented on — the issue enough that I’m no longer a stranger to county’s most frequent...