The City of Bloomington logo above the dais in the council chambers.
(Alex Eady, WTIU/WFIU News)
The Bloomington City Council is changing the way it conducts public comment at its meetings.
On Wednesday, the council unanimously adopted two major changes: a new time limit on comments from members of the public and adjustments to its rules for public comment.
An approved council ordinance will cap each person’s comments at three minutes when speaking on items not on the meeting agenda. The current limit is five minutes per speaker.
The council allows two periods of public comment for non-agenda items: one at the beginning of their meetings generally capped at 20 minutes, and another at the end capped at 25 minutes.
The ordinance also removes a provision allowing the presiding officer to reduce the time limit from five minutes based on the number of people who want to speak.
The ordinance will not change how much time attendees get to comment on agenda items, which is already capped at three minutes per speaker.
According to the new rules, anyone who violates them will first be issued a warning. If they receive three warnings, the meeting chair can direct the person to leave; if they do not, the chair can direct a law enforcement officer to remove the person.
Council President Isabel Piedmont-Smith sponsored the ordinance. She said she did so in part to help reduce confusion around how much time people will have to speak about non-agenda items.
“First, the current process leads to speakers not having a predictable time limit for their comments,” Piedmont-Smith wrote in a letter to the rest of the council. “Second, in order to determine whether the five-minute limit should be shortened, the chair must accurately ascertain how many people wish to speak, which is generally difficult since not everyone who wishes to speak may initially raise their hands to indicate they would like to do so.”
Isabel Piedmont-Smith (Courtesy, Community Access Television Services)
The council can, however, suspend this new rule at a meeting by a majority vote, according to Council Attorney Stephen Lucas.
The ordinance also includes an amendment changing the order in which the council conducts its business by moving legislation for a first reading before legislation for a second reading.
The council’s current practice is to discuss legislation for a second reading before legislation for a first reading. The council often votes on legislation during a second reading. A first reading allows a second reading to occur at the council’s subsequent meeting.
Councilor Hopi Stosberg sponsored the amendment, which passed unanimously. She said this change is meant to prevent the possibility of the council failing to get to first readings in the event a member invokes the “reasonable hour” rule. This allows any two council members to automatically end a meeting after midnight if one makes a motion and another seconds it.
Hopi Stosberg (Courtesy, Community Access Television Services)
Jeff Richardson, another former councilor who attended Wednesday’s meeting via Zoom, urged the council to consider meetings that would allow for more in-depth discussion than is allowed at regular sessions.
“During the nine-hour council meeting where tents in the parks item was on the agenda, I think that as I recall, the experts had three minutes to speak, just as did the general public,” Richardson said. “Upon reflection, I think the council might have considered having these recognized experts speak before the general public got their three minutes and have a fuller discussion about the facts laying down the foundation, not unlike congressional panels.”
He also encouraged the council to consider speakers to rebut comments challenged by subsequent speakers, citing a disagreement between the local police union and former Mayor John Hamilton during a meeting on the Showers West project as an example.
“When the police union folks were sharing their concerns about moving into the Showers building … sharing some statistics, the former mayor questioned some of those stats afterward,” Richardson said. “In this kind of situation, the council president, I think, should have the discretion to decide if the police in this case should respond since they were, again, most impacted by the situation.”
Volan added to Richardson’s comments by encouraging the council to split public discussions up between several meetings in some cases.
“There are too many people who want to speak anymore; this chamber can fill up to 150 people,” Volan said. “If there was a committee that it could be referred to, that committee could hold multiple meetings until all the public comment was made.”
Steve Volan (Courtesy, Community Access Television Services)
Volan added when the council was discussing a 2021 ordinance on plexes, six meetings were held across two weeks to discuss several amendments to the legislation.
“That should have been broken up over time,” he said. “It should have been taken up by a committee. Committees are a civil way to have the kind of discussion that I think everyone says they want to have.”
Council member Sydney Zulich said she is interested in exploring new ways of interacting with the public, including formats that are more conversational than typical council meetings.
Councilor Isak Asare, too, responded positively to suggestions from the public, expressing openness to allowing the council flexibility to adjust its rules as it sees fit. He also supported Richardson’s idea for rebuttals, which he thought could be capped at one minute.
Piedmont-Smith said she has concerns about leaving too much to the chair’s discretion but that this topic can be revisited in the future. She also said a committee on council processes will soon present a proposal to have other types of council meetings that allow for more back-and-forth discussions with the public.
