Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Comment topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Norwood committee debates adding contact field to speaker form and cutting public-comment time
Summary
Committee members discussed adding optional contact fields to the 'request to address council' form and considered reducing public-comment allotments (from five minutes to three) to improve meeting efficiency; any change to public-comment time would require law-committee review.
Norwood’s Committee of the Whole discussed potential changes to the public-comment process: adding an optional contact-information field to the city’s “request to address council” form and reducing the default time allotment for speakers.
A council member proposed adding language to the speaker form such as: “If you would like to be contacted by a member of council, please provide additional information below,” with fields for phone number and email. Members discussed that collecting contact information would not create any obligation to follow up, but would make it easier for council or staff to contact speakers who indicate they welcome follow-up.
On public-comment time, several council members expressed concern about long meetings during contentious items and suggested reducing the standard five-minute allotment. One council member said, “I would almost rather it be shorter and then we could move to extend it,” explaining a preference to set shorter default times and allow council to extend time during meetings when appropriate. Members noted that changing the standard speaker time would require a rules change and would go to the law committee for consideration.
No formal rule change or vote was taken. Staff agreed to investigate how to edit the speaker form to add optional contact fields and to place any proposed rule change about speaker time on the law committee’s agenda for future consideration.
