many locals feel that public comments detract from city business, create a hostile atmosphere, and serve as only a venting tool. What will you do to help the city council conduct city business While still permitting limited public comment? 

— Sydney Jacobs

Response

Dan Shahin

Many locals think that public comment is a vital and important part of civic discourse. As evidence of that, I will cite the dozens of people who came to City Hall to protest the attempted removal of Zoom as a method of public comment.

Not even one person spoke in favor of removing Zoom — including the two City Council members who put it on the agenda! Without that public input, there is a real chance we would have lost an important tool for increasing public engagement on the issues we all care about.

If anything, we need to expand public comment periods, not restrict them. The two separate public comment periods we have now should be combined and moved to the beginning of Council meetings, with a full three minutes per comment for anyone.

If an issue is receiving so much public comment that it takes up a significant portion of a Council meeting, that’s an indicator that the issue in question is extremely important to the public, not something that should be suppressed.

When those moments arise, we should consider forming committees, or even holding ad hoc town hall meetings, so that the opinions of the community — all voices — can be heard. Those meetings could deal with important issues and bring findings back to the Council to inform policy decisions.

Robust public discourse should never be treated as an inconvenience. Rather, it should be treated as a vital piece of local governance that we need to celebrate, never denigrate.

 

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