Hanover’s upcoming public forum on the police response to last spring’s protest at Dartmouth College is shaping up less as a good-faith effort to hear what’s on people’s minds than as an exercise in shielding officials from blow-back.

We reach this conclusion for a few reasons.

First, the timing of the forum is at best inauspicious and at worst suspicious. At Town Meeting on May 14, officials deflected residents’ attempts to discuss how and why Hanover police, abetted by a state special operations unit in riot gear and other law enforcement agencies, moved precipitately to arrest scores of peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters on the Dartmouth Green, who were merely exercising their free-speech rights.

Those attending Town Meeting were told that it was not the time or place for such discussions and that a public forum might be scheduled down the road to discuss the issue. (You might well ask what Town Meeting is for if not to talk about urgent community concerns.)

Slow forward to mid-July, when it is announced that the forum will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 20 at Howe Library — during the height of vacation season, when many residents likely will be away.

Also most Dartmouth students will not return to campus until Sept. 16, and for those who are on campus for summer session, the forum arrives on the eve of the end of classes and the start of final examinations. Given that no remote option for participation is planned, this timing stands to exclude many people who have a material interest in making their views known.

Selectboard Chairman Carey Callaghan told our colleague Patrick Adrian that the delay was due to the town’s failed attempt to bring in professional facilitators to guide the discussion and that it was eventually scheduled for its current date because the Selectboard “wanted to get the forum in.” Not explained is why, after this long delay, mid-August is preferable to, say, mid- to late September, when more participation could be expected. (Why elected officials would seek to interpose outside facilitators between themselves and their constituents is another question.)

The timing also means that Town Manager Alex Torpey will conveniently no longer be in office, having received a $135,000 severance package to leave his job a year before his contract expired. So he presumably will not be on hand to answer questions about what role he played in the crackdown or why, despite a court order, his administration is still stonewalling a Valley News public records request for the arrest records of two Dartmouth student protesters who were hauled in last fall by Hanover police and charged with trespassing on their own campus.

The timing is not the only problematic aspect of the forum.

For instance, Police Chief Charlie Dennis is scheduled to provide information about departmental protocol and operating procedures at the beginning of the forum, but — he won’t be taking questions. So the flow of information will remain tightly controlled.

We also wonder what Dartmouth officials have been invited to participate, given that the college was ground zero for the events that led to holding the forum.

And then there’s the format. Adrian reported that forum participants will be divided into five discussion groups, each of which will be moderated by a Selectboard member. An overview of each discussion is to be shared later with the entire group. This brings to mind the “design charrettes” so beloved by planners who bring stakeholders together to collaboratively brainstorm new ideas.

In this case, though, it’s not a charrette; it’s a charade. Selectboard members as a group need to hear directly what all participants have to say, not a homogenized summing up of five separate conversations.

And members of the public also need to hear and reflect on what their neighbors think about the police action that night, as it might change or shape their own views.

If the fear is that the rhetoric will get too heated, then ground rules can be laid down ahead of time and enforced.

It may be uncomfortable for some people to participate in a full and free exchange of views in public, but it is essential to the democratic process that we relearn how to talk with each other about divisive issues face to face, and that our leaders hear us.