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Editorial: Time to focus on what public speakers have to say, not when they say it – Political Fix Florida

Collier County commissioners and Collier School Board members have wrestled — again — with the formats they have in place to hear comments from citizens attending their meetings.

Commissioners talked about altering the public speaking schedule in a couple of ways and came around to the status quo. Commissioners, whose meetings start at 9 a.m., typically allow citizens to make general comments at 1 p.m. after their lunch break, and during the debate of each specific agenda item on which they will vote.

In the case of the School Board, two members lost a vote last week to change back to a prior format. The current system front-loads all public comment at the beginning of each meeting. The two want citizens to speak at the time an agenda item is up for a vote, even if that comes late at night because board meetings don’t start until 5:30 p.m.

In each case, there are good arguments to change when people can address their elected government leaders. In each case, reasonable points can be made to leave it the same. All this demonstrates is that there is no perfect system.

What the Legislature made clear through bills passed in 2013 is that citizens must be given a reasonable opportunity to speak at public meetings. The bills didn’t codify “when.”

 

Original article here.

 

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