Graham’s city council is considering a raft of changes to the public comment period at its monthly meetings – most notably, halving the amount of time allotted to each speaker and limiting the time for public comments to a maximum of 30 minutes per meeting.
The council held a special meeting Monday afternoon to discuss changes to its “rules of procedures,” i.e., the process for conducting its meetings, as well as how to fund big-ticket construction projects in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year (see separate story, this edition).
The proposed meeting procedures would halve the amount of time allotted to speakers – from the current four minutes to two minutes – based on the changes that Graham’s city council spent an hour discussing Monday.
If a number of people want to speak on the same topic, and/or express the same viewpoint about that topic, they would need to designate a spokesperson to address the council during its public comments period.
“We can’t enforce that, but it is a recommendation,” Graham mayor Chelsea Dickey pointed out Monday afternoon.
Though the council had initially asked staff to draft new “rules of procedure” at its December 9, 2025 meeting, this week’s deep-dive into the proposed changes follow a contentious, four-hour meeting two weeks ago.
The council’s February 10 meeting drew approximately 90 people who overflowed the council’s chambers and spilled into an overflow room inside city hall.
During a nearly two-hour public comment period, more than two dozen spoke in opposition to the majority’s decision to relocate Sesquicentennial Park from the northwest corner of Court Square to a parking lot along West Elm Street.
Council member Bonnie Whitaker took the lead on capping the time for public comments at a cumulative total of 30 minutes and allotting two minutes per speaker.
Alamance County’s commissioners allot a total of 30 minutes for public comments during each of their semimonthly meetings, Whitaker said Monday afternoon. “I think the way the county commissioners do it is agreeable to me; they limit it to 30 minutes,” she told her fellow council members.
The commissioners, however, allow each person to speak for up to three minutes during their public comments period.
“A lot of times, we have people here that are not from Graham,” Whitaker said. “If we are going to limit our [public comments] to 30 minutes, my preference would be [to allow] people from Graham and business owners to go first.”
After the council also touched on potentially restricting public comments to matters that are listed (or not listed) on the agenda, Graham city attorney Bob Ward warned that speakers must be allowed to address the council in the order they’ve signed up to speak and must be allowed to talk about anything they want to.
Multiple courts – most recently ,the state Court of Appeals in November 2025 – have ruled that any limits on constitutionally-protected speech in “public forums,” which include official government meetings, must be “reasonable” and content-neutral, with the exception of speech deemed “fighting words” that are likely to provoke an imminent and violent reaction.
Dickering over whether to have public comments at beginning or end of meeting
The council also dickered over whether to keep the public comments period at the end of its monthly agenda, or move it up earlier in the meeting so that people could address the council and leave if they want.
Councilman Jim Young said he’d appreciated being able to speak to Alamance County’s commissioners during their February 16 meeting (where he asked the county to pitch in funds for the upkeep of Sesquicentennial Park) and then leave, rather than having to wait until the end of their meeting to speak.
“It’s rare we have that amount come [to our meetings],” Young conceded, referring to the unusually large crowd that attended the council meeting two weeks ago. “If we do have a 30-minute [total time limit] – I don’t think we’re going to have numerous meetings where we have an abundance of people talking. If I was sitting out there, an agenda item can drag out pretty long, I would be pretty mad.”
Councilman Bobby Chin, for his part, suggested that the council tailor its public comments policy around what he described as the council’s first obligation: to conduct the city’s business.
“The public comment period, if it’s at the end of the meeting, and we’ve conducted all the city business, it doesn’t matter how long it goes,” Chin said. “I just feel if we’ve conducted the city business, the public comment period is open to anything.”
Chin cautioned against allowing the public comments period to become a free-for-all, saying people shouldn’t be allowed to just walk up to the podium and start speaking.
“We wouldn’t have any control over what they say,” Young countered. “This is what we have now, and it’s not stopping them. I don’t see reason to change it.”
“If you’re not careful, we’ll turn our city council meeting into a public forum for anything and everything,” Chin responded. “Hey, we’re talking things that, hey, are a financial issue or an ordinance. There are times when, hey, we need to take care of business. We’re elected to represent and make decisions. If all we’re going to [do is] wait and hear everybody then, hey, why have elected officials?”
Graham’s city council ultimately agreed this week to move the public comments period up earlier in the meeting – following adoption of the consent agenda, which is typically reserved for noncontroversial items and are approved en bloc – over the objections of Chin and mayor pro tem Ricky Hall, who wanted to keep public comments at the end of the agenda.
Final draft to be presented at March meeting
Speakers who are unable to address the time during the half-hour public comments period would get cut off and could either come back the next month or submit something in writing, Ward told the council Monday afternoon.
Graham city manager Megan Garner told the council that it would be best to delay voting to adopt the new procedures until a final draft is prepared and presented at a future meeting.
Instead, the council agreed to have staff prepare a final draft and present it for possible adoption at its next meeting on March 10.
The council agreed by consensus to maintain the existing time limits on its own comments: 10 minutes for “speeches” on a “substantive motion” and five minutes for a second speech on the same motion; five minutes on “procedural motion” and two minutes for a second speech on the same procedural motion.
The changes represent a hybrid of Robert’s Rules of Orders; the city’s existing March 2012 policy that governs issues not included on the agenda; and recommendations from the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dickey said Monday afternoon.
Read the newspaper’s editorial page views on the contemplated reduction in time for public speakers: https://alamancenews.com/graham-city-council-set-to-strike-out-at-residents-again-this-time-curbing-their-ability-to-speak-influence-council-decisions/
