TC Palm by Keona Gardner, Treasure Coast Newspapers
August 12, 2019
FORT PIERCE — The City Commission already has rules addressing decorum at public meetings and just needs to enforce them, the city attorney said Monday.
The City Commission has been grappling with behavior at its meetings since last month, when businessman Rick Reed directed a profanity-laced tirade at Mayor Linda Hudson and directed a racial slur at a Fort Pierce police officer.
City Attorney Pete Sweeney, however, declined after Monday’s meeting to explain how the commission would determine if a speaker’s comments are boisterous, civil, inflammatory, obscene, profane, immaterial or personal.
A city spokeswoman did not return an email seeking comment.
Fort Pierce gives the public two opportunities at each City Commission meeting to speak: The first, which requires sign-ins in advance, is for items not requiring a public hearing. The second is at the end of the meeting.
Each comment period is limited to 30 minutes. Individual speakers are limited to three minutes each, and warned to wrap up with a five-second light.
