Cutting out audience comment at City Council Meetings

Mayor Law has long sought to shorten or cut out our resident time to address the council.  (This was proposed in July of 2012 and dropped.)  What many residents may not know is that the issue of reducing council meetings to 2 or 1 a month is just the tip of the iceberg. 

What will happen next is that audience comment will be limited to the sign-up period.  The traditional rebuttal period at the end of the session, where residents can address comments made by council members, and residents who have not had a chance to speak can come forward, will be dropped.  Cutting out the traditional non-sign-up period at the end of the council would keep those who may be working late and stuck in traffic, or unable to get there early enough to sign up, from speaking.

It also limits public access and comment to just appealing to the council, then not being able to address their comments with more questions or information.  Council members rarely ask questions of speakers or create any type of dialogue in the audience comment period.  Less council sessions and less speaking time means we lose the ability to talk to the council about issues as they develop and are ongoing.  By the time another council session rolls around a situation may have changed radically.

The Mayor and council members seem to feel that they and staff have already 'worked a full day' - do they forget that those of us who attend the council meetings have done that too?  We fight traffic and give up our evenings with family and friends because we're concerned. 

We have a great system now.  Why would our council members - the people elected by us, to represent us, paid by our taxes - want to reduce the chances we have to speak to them all together, in one place?  The committees they serve on meet at times ordinary working people can't attend.  Council members don't serve on every committee, so council sessions are the best, and really the only time, for the council as a whole to hear us.  See the Mayor's communication below:

From: Denis Law
Subject: Audience comment

Don,

I highly recommend that you add “Audience Comment” to your discussion in January when you discuss the frequency of council meetings. Currently, a small handful of individuals are abusing the audience comment  process by regularly coming up a second time during the meeting to address the council.

As you know, the second audience comment was established years ago to make sure that all citizens who wanted to address the council would have the opportunity. The council policies limited the first audience comment to 30 minutes, and the intent was to allow those who were unable to address the council within that timeframe to have the chance at the second comment period.

We have moved away from limiting the first audience comment to 30 minutes and provide everyone the chance to speak (we should probably revise the council policy that calls for the limit of 30 minutes). A small handful of regular visitors continually come up during the second comment period despite my efforts to invite only those who did not speak during the first session.

Since I get the sense that the Council prefers to allow all citizens the opportunity to speak during the first comment period, I recommend that we drop the second audience comment. If we retain the second comment period, it’s my intention not to allow a “second bite at the apple” unless a majority of the council votes to approve the second comment.

The Council needs to be advised that if you choose to allow citizens to speak twice, or extend their five minute speaking time, we open ourselves up to a legal challenge if we don’t allow this for everyone, including the Stand Up America visitors.

We won’t want to deliberate this issue on email. My intent is to encourage you to add this to the agenda in January.

Thanks Don.

[Mayor_SIG_blue_small]
Mayor, City of Renton
1055 S. Grady Way, Renton, WA 98057
425 430-6500
rentonwa.gov