Leader Herald Staff
The City Council is now discussing a change in procedure for the public speaking sessions before Council meetings which are having a tendency to turn politics here upside down.
The speaking period will be expanded to 30 minutes, and comments must be restricted to agenda items to be discussed at that meeting.
For those wishing to speak about non-agenda items, they will be given that opportunity at the end of the agenda portion of the Council meeting.
“This is more fair than any other city around us,” said
Councilor Stephanie Smith, the leader of the public rule change in the public speaking format that the Council will be putting into place.
The public speaking sessions before Council meetings have grown into contentious, lively, compelling long drawn out affairs, with residents coming forth as never before to express themselves about the great issues of the day – which the Council had been tending to ignore.
Public speakers have been derided by the mayor, who suggested at a recent public meeting that “they are just a few trouble makers” or something to that effect.