CivicLex Presents our Public Input Recommendations!
In Tuesday’s General Government and Planning (GGP) Council Committee meeting, our Executive Director Richard Young presented recommendations from our Public Input Research!
Over the past two years, CivicLex has worked with the City of Lexington to study how residents and LFUCG Staff feel about how the public can provide input on legislation being made by the Council. After engaging with over a thousand residents and LFUCG staff, processing the data, and learning from peer cities, we're making 12 recommendations for how to improve public input in City Hall. Some of those recommendations include:
Moving public comment for items on the agenda to the beginning of meetings
Including public comment in all Council and Committee meetings
Holding meetings outside of City Hall specifically for public input
Providing options for on-the-record virtual public comment
You can view our presentation slides for the GGP Committee here.
After last week’s presentation, District 3 Councilmember Hannah LeGris recommended that the Council create a workgroup to work on the implementation of CivicLex’s 12 recommendations. CM LeGris agreed to chair the Workgroup, but we are unsure who else will serve. We will keep you posted on all of the updates!
In other public input news, in last week’s Committee of the Whole Meeting, as well as in Thursday’s Council Meeting, Councilmembers stated that until they finish a plan on how to implement CivicLex’s Public Input recommendations, they will be strict on how Public Comment will work in City Meetings. Mainly, they will not make exceptions to the current Public Comment rules, meaning:
Speakers will not be granted extra time if they do not finish their remarks within the three minutes given to them.
Council will not add Public Comment to meetings where it is not previously planned, including all Council committees.
Council will not move when Public Comment occurs in the meeting (so if public comment is scheduled for the end of a meeting, it will not be moved to the beginning of the meeting.
This is important because Council has, in the past, been pretty relaxed about granting extra time or moving Public Comment around on the agenda. Residents planning to speak should bear that in mind in the future.
