Council scraps proposed 30-minute limit for public comments;
Cuts individual speaker’s time from four to three minutes, which was more than two minutes originally proposed
Graham’s city council backed off Tuesday night from an earlier proposal to limit public comments during their monthly meetings to 30 minutes and halve the current four-minute limit on individual speakers to two minutes.
Instead, the council ditched the proposed overall limit altogether and modified the time for individual speakers to three minutes.
But the council also decided to stick with its current structure of designating public comments at the end of their meetings, rather than toward the beginning.
An earlier time slot on the agenda had been suggested by mayor Chelsea Dickey during the council’s earlier discussion on revising the public comments period.
An earlier time slot in their meetings for public comments is the prevailing practice in most other local jurisdictions, such as the county commissioners, Burlington and Mebane city councils, Elon’s town council, and Gibsonville’s board of aldermen, as well as the Alamance-Burlington school board. Only Haw River’s town council also has public comments toward the end of its monthly meetings.
Dickey started the discussion this week by saying she wanted to eliminate the 30-minute limit, but pass the remainder of the proposed changes, which would include a two-minute limit on individual speakers and moving the public comments to the beginning of the meeting.
Council member Bonnie Whitaker, who had originally suggested the overall time limit and the shortened time for individual speakers at an earlier council meeting. However, Whitaker said she now wanted the public comments to remain at the end of the meeting, but she wanted to modify the time for individual speakers to three minutes, rather than two, and she also would eliminate the 30-minute cap she had first proposed.
Whitaker said this week that the only reason she had proposed the 30-minute cap previously was to accommodate the mayor’s desire to move the public comments to the beginning of the meeting.
“It was interpreted as I was trying to limit the amount of time people could speak, and that was not my intent at all,” Whitaker said Tuesday night.
Councilman Bobby Chin reiterated his previously-expressed preference to conduct the business on the council’s agenda before hearing public comments.
But councilman Jim Young said, “I still think [the public] should speak early.”
Young made a motion to remove the proposed 30-minute cap, allow three minutes for speakers, and put the public comments early in the agenda. His motion failed 2-3; he and mayor Dickey voted in favor; Chin, mayor pro tem Ricky Hall and council member Bonnie Whitaker voted against.
Young ultimately joined the majority in voting 4-1 for the revised public comments procedure – eliminating the 30-minute cap, revising the individual time slots to three minutes, and keeping the public comments at the end of the council’s monthly meeting. Chin, Whitaker, Hall, and Young voted for. Only mayor Dickey voted no. She had urged the earlier time slot for public comments.
Even with the changes, however, residents still took time during the public comments period at Tuesday night’s meeting to voice their displeasure about the council’s attitude toward the public. [See separate story in this edition.]
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