Public comment period may be moved to beginning of Council Meetings

Last Thursday, the Public Input Subcommittee voted to recommend a change to Council Meetings that would move public comment for items on the agenda to the beginning of the meeting, rather than the end of the meeting.

Public comment is currently the last item on the agenda of formal Council Meetings, which can sometimes lead to Council voting on items before the public gets a chance to comment on those items.

• The Subcommittee’s recommended change would split public comment into two parts, with comment for items on the agenda at the beginning, and open public comment for any issue at the end of the agenda.

  • This is currently how Council Work Sessions are structured.

The Subcommittee wants to start the new year with these rules in effect to make it clearer for the public and new Councilmembers. To do that, Council will have to consider the item quickly. Typically, a recommendation from the Subcommittee would first be reported to the General Government and Planning (GGP) Committee, and then forwarded to the full Council.

• Since the GGP Committee has no meetings for the rest of the year, Vice Mayor Dan Wu said in the meeting that he would walk on the item in December 3rd’s Work Session to enable the change to be final before the new year.

  • A walk on is an item that a Councilmember brings up for consideration without the issue having been previously voted on by a Committee.

  • Walked on items are not uncommon, particularly towards the end of the Council’s legislative calendar.

If Council approves the idea in Work Session, then it will be officially voted on during the December 5th Council Meeting.

As a reminder, the Public Input Subcommittee was created in response to CivicLex’s Public Input report, which was released almost two years ago. Council has since implemented many of the recommendations from the report.