(From top left): Council members Matt Flaherty, Isak Asare, Dave Rollo, Courtney Daily, Kate Rosenbarger, Andy Ruff, Sydney Zulich, Isabel Piedmont-Smith and Hopi Stosberg.
(Courtesy, City of Bloomington)
The Bloomington City Council has adopted rules limiting how long its members can speak on agenda items.
The council recently passed an ordinance imposing time limits on the two turns each member gets to speak on a given item: five minutes for the first period and two minutes for the second.
The measure passed by a vote of 5-4. It was supported by Hopi Stosberg, Isabel Piedmont-Smith, Isak Asare, Kate Rosenbarger and Matt Flaherty. Andy Ruff, Courtney Daily, Dave Rollo and Sydney Zulich opposed it.
Piedmont-Smith, the council president, sponsored the ordinance. It originally included limits of three minutes for members’ first turn and one minute for their second. The limits were extended through an amendment.
Piedmont-Smith said time limits can help the council be more efficient.
“I think that sometimes our debate drags on for too long, and I'm hoping that a time limit will encourage council members to plan ahead and to focus their comments,” she said. “I think that it still leaves room for a longer comment period, either given at the outset of debate of something that is particularly controversial or are big or intricate.”
Isabel Piedmont-Smith (Courtesy, Community Access Television Services)
The ordinance was informed by time limits other city councils in Indiana and in the Big Ten impose.
Time limits on city council debate in other Indiana cities (Provided, City of Bloomington)Time limits on city council debate in Big 10 cities (Provided, City of Bloomington)
The council can choose to suspend the new rules for a specific topic. To do so, a member must make a motion with two-thirds majority support.
Piedmont-Smith said in the past, members have spoken in length about items that were unanimously approved.
In that instance, council members Rollo and Ruff joined their colleagues in supporting the resolution, despite saying they wanted to first conduct more research on the impacts of gender-affirming treatments on people younger than 18.
The council’s resolution was a response to Indiana’s new law banning gender-affirming care for Hoosiers younger than 18 and preventing providers from “aiding and abetting” parents seeking the treatment for their child outside the state.
“(The resolution) was voted on 9-0, and yet there were extensive comments from two council members prior to voting ‘yes’ on the ordinance,” Piedmont-Smith said. “Council members have in the past taken more time than I think was necessary to do our business and to understand their viewpoints.”
Stosberg introduced the amendment that increased the time limits the ordinance imposes. She said she felt the originally proposed limits were too short.
“I think that there have definitely been moments in the last six months where there have been council comments that have been exceedingly long,” Stosberg said. “If you talk for too long, it becomes a turn-off. Suddenly, it does not become persuasive anymore. I definitely think that there's a balance to be struck and that we all have to figure out how to strike that balance.”
Hopi Stosberg (Courtesy, Community Access Television Services)
As an example, Stosberg cited Ruff’s seven minutes of comments on the recently approved Summit District development, which is expected to bring up to 4,250 homes to a nearly 140-acre piece of land on the city’s southwest side.
In that case, it was almost midnight, and Ruff and Rollo wanted to postpone voting to a later meeting.
Because of a “reasonable hour” ordinance the council passed in 2021, the council meeting automatically ends at midnight if the rule is invoked. For that to happen, one council member must make a motion to end the meeting and another member must second it. The motion is not debatable.
Some saw Ruff’s lengthy comments on the development as an attempt to push the meeting past midnight to prevent a vote that evening.
In both the case of the gender-affirming care resolution and the Summit District project, Ruff and Rollo wanted more time to deliberate.
Ruff said reducing council members’ discussion runs counter to what they are elected to do and could lead to rushed outcomes on high-impact projects.
“I think the public's business takes a lot of time, especially in a place like Bloomington,” Ruff said. “I don't feel like our meetings are too long.”
Andy Ruff (Courtesy, Community Access Television Services)
Ruff said he would support evaluating the council’s processes in other ways besides limiting debate.
“Reducing or curtailing active deliberation is just … that's what we're elected to do,” he said. “One of the primary parts of our job is to carefully, thoroughly do due diligence, share what we learn (and) try to persuade our fellow council colleagues.”
The reasonable hour rule was created because of that meeting.
Rollo, too, felt the rules were unnecessary and said he’s afraid the new rules will be used to quash the opinions of council members who don’t share the majority’s viewpoint.
“There may be a 180-degree difference in opinion on the council, and it may require the minority to just describe contextually what their objection is,” he said.
Dave Rollo (Courtesy, Community Access Television Services)
Other council members who rejected the ordinance said they found Ruff’s and Rollo’s arguments persuasive.
Asare initially expressed opposition to the measure. He described the ordinance as “a way of delaying us making some of the more radical changes that we really should be making.”
Isak Asare (Courtesy, Community Access Television Services)
Asare later supported the ordinance despite this, and his vote against Stosberg’s amendment.
The new limits do not impact how much time council members get to ask questions about agenda items.
