The Valdosta Board of Education’s approval of a $56.9 million budget for the 2011 fiscal year made headlines this past week, but the real story may have been what else happened during that meeting.

Warren Lee, District 3 school board member and the board’s vice chairman, requested that citizens be given the opportunity to speak at all meetings, even called board meetings.

The board approved Lee’s request and, according to The Times story last week, several citizens exercised their right to be heard.

That’s the way it should be.

Anyone who has ever regularly attended government meetings has witnessed how some elected officials treat the “citizens to be heard” forum with equal parts contempt, skepticism, mockery and derision.

Some elected officials roll their eyes as citizens speak.

Or they try staring a citizen into silence.

Or they cut off the citizen’s remarks.

And, as it happened in Hahira several years ago, the governing board refuses to allow citizens a forum to speak their minds.

That’s no way to run a democracy.

Granted, there should be rules for a “citizens to be heard” forum. Speakers should have a time limit, for example. But very few rules. If a hundred citizens arrive, and each wishes to speak on the same subject, well, they should have the opportunity to say their piece.

Citizens have a right to be heard, especially by those officials whom they had a right to elect. Elected officials and government employees work for the people.

Not the other way around.

Yet, citizens should remember to respect a right, not abuse it.

Citizens should keep to the time constraints so other citizens and other concerns may be voiced, as well as allow the board to govern.

Citizens should do their best to keep their presentations civil, as should elected officials.

A citizen should remember the citizens to be heard format is an opportunity to voice a concern not necessarily launch weekly personal crusades.

It has often been the abuse of the format that has led elected officials to treat it with contempt.

But that’s no excuse.

We applaud the Valdosta Board of Education’s move toward a more open and public forum for citizens to discuss issues.

Citizens have a right to be heard. More elected officials need to remember that.