Let's talk about public comment at City Council

Hey Locals,

At the April 7th City Council meeting, President Marty Bender opened the biweekly public comment period by telling attendees* to “not include any commercial or political speech topics” in their two-minute allotted comments. He clarified: “That means you can’t be talking about any type of commercial events, like a restaurant opening up or serving food at an event -- anything that’s not pertaining to council business.”

• Why the speech? Bender told The JG* his comments were a result of prior public comment sessions that involved citizens advertising for businesses, as well as some political speech that included “threats,” which some council members found offensive.
• Since then: Bender has received pushback from citizens and some fellow council members for using vague terms, like “political speech,” which some wanted further clarification about. Bender also said the rules have existed “for years,” but citizens pointed out that they aren’t published on council's website. 

Seeing that there might be more here than meets the eye, we decided to dig into the official rules regarding public comment, reach out to council members to better understand the purpose of these comment sessions, and seek out ways residents can best engage in discussions on matters they care about. Ultimately, our findings led us to a topic we're quite familiar with: the fractured nature of our current media environment and how that impacts local citizens wanting to know or share information.

Let's dive in.

1. What rules exist around City Council's biweekly public comment periods?

• The most recent City code states: “there shall be a time for open comments from citizens” at council meetings on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. But this is the only specific language we could find in the code that describes public comment.
• City Council's webpage includes a bit more information, including a time limit (“Citizens may address the City Council for 2 minutes”) and content guidance (“any topic that is within the Council's authority.”) It also notes that public comment is a succession of speakers; as in, there’s no back-and-forth conversation between the public and council members.

However, this is the extent of the posted guidelines for public comment. This means: If there are or have been rules in place pertaining to commercial or political speech "for years," as Bender says, there is no official document that has articulated this to the public – or at least, none that we could find.

2. So what is the purpose of the public comment period anyway?