Written comments will no longer be read into record at council meetings

In the journalism world, it’s called “burying the lede.” It means that the really important info is not at the top of the story. And it is an apropos comparison for a discussion about, well, public discussion.

The city council voted unanimously last week to approve a pair of resolutions about city council meetings. While the most consequential of the two (vacating the second meeting in the month of November) has not seemed to inspire much in the way of public outrage, the second (limiting public comment at meetings to three minutes) has resulted in a good deal of social media outrage, largely led by former Mayor Kiernan McManus.

But, the roots of the issue were best addressed — toward the end of the meeting — by Councilmember Steve Walton, who said, “It seems like we’ve become used to these things that have been in place for a couple of years and we think they’ve been in place for 100 years.”

As with so many other things, changes were made to the way the public could interact with the city council in the plague year of 2020.

Responding to a question from Walton about the process for public comment pre-Covid, City Clerk Tami McKay responded that, prior to 2020, there was no option for calling in or for written comments that were read into the public record.

McKay explained that, because the public was not allowed into City Hall during that time, that accommodations were made so that people could still comment without being physically present. Other entities in Clark County also allowed call-in comments but staff was not aware on any other jurisdictions that had allowed written comments to be read into the record.

According to Walton (after staff had been unable to answer the question and he had quipped, “You never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to,”), all other jurisdictions in Clark County have returned to their pre-Covid procedures regarding public comment. No write-ins. No call-ins.

And, starting with the Aug. 13 council meeting, no written comments were discussed in the meeting nor were they read into the record. This change took place without any public notice, without an agenda item and without any discussion by the council.

“It was not a matter requiring city council action,” said McKay in an email. “After careful staff consideration, the process to read aloud written comments and allow the public to call in, which began during COVID when the building was closed to the public, has been changed back to pre-COVID procedures. This information is indicated on the Written Comment Form and on the agendas.”

McKay said that all submitted written comments are provided to the council, committees, or commissions as they are received so members have time to review them.

“The written comments are available to the public as a hand-out at the meeting and uploaded to the agenda packet within 24 hours after the meeting,” McKay said. “In addition, written comments submitted for a meeting are attached to the minutes to serve as the official record. These measures are standard procedure and comply with Nevada Open Meeting Law. Members of the public can still call in to make public comment and attend in person if they wish their remarks to be heard at the meeting.”

The move to limit the time allotted to each speaker will, according to McKay, have little affect on most speakers. Noting that there was a large number of people who spoke at the most recent meeting — nearly all supporting the placement of a military memorial in Wilbur Square — McKay said that all comments except one had been less than three minutes.

If the bulk of speakers are coming in under three minutes already, it would seem that the amount of time dedicated to public comment would be a weak argument for limiting time. However, that is the first reason noted by McKay in her presentation to the council.

“Over the years I’ve received several comments from members of the community regarding the public comment portion of our meeting and the length of it,” she said. “As an example, most recently, the July planning commission’s meeting, their public comment portion — just the first public comment portion — was two hours and 37 minutes. I received quite a few complaints that there were people who wanted to speak but they just didn’t have the time to stay for the duration of the meeting to provide their comments.”

Stronger arguments were to be found in a comparison to other jurisdictions in Clark County, where no other entity allows comments over three minutes each and none allow for call-ins or written comments read into the record.

The biggest issue for observers trying to remotely (i.e., via the livestream of council meetings) “take the temperature” of the public in regard to actions taken by the council is that it will be impossible to know what kind of correspondence council members are getting about an issue until they are attached to the agenda after a meeting. For those actually in attendance in council chambers, correspondence received after the agenda was released will be available, per McKay, as a printed hand-out.

The reason for not including written correspondence in the packet appears to be largely one of convenience and tradition for city staff. State law mandates that the agenda for public meetings be posted at least three days prior to the meeting. However, Boulder City posts agendas, typically, seven days prior to the meeting. Crucially, staff posts the packet for the meeting at the same time as the agenda. Because members of the public (and observers including reporters) do not know what is on the agenda until it is published, written comment usually arrives in the four-day period between the time the agenda and packet are posted and the actual meeting. If the agenda were to be posted seven days in advance and then the packet 24 hours before the meeting, most written comment could be included in the packet.

The second part of the resolution calls for the vacating of scheduled city council meetings on the fourth Tuesday in November. The idea was couched as being necessary in election years in order to allow time for newly elected council members to be sufficiently briefed in the time between official canvassing of election results and the next scheduled meeting of the council.

For example, this year, the election is on Nov. 5 and there will be a special city council meeting 10 days later on Nov. 15 to “canvass” and officially declare the election results. The next regularly-scheduled council meeting would take place on Nov. 26 and staff called that 11-day gap insufficient to allow for proper briefing of new council members. (Note that there is only one council seat up for election this year and the two candidates in contention are current Councilmember Matt Fox and Denise Ashurst, who is a current member of the Historical Preservation Commission.)

Walton, again, appeared to get to the actual nut of the issue.

“Hey, this year we want to vacate it because you can suspend council rules and vacate one meeting,” he said. “OK and that’s been done in the past because the second meeting in November does fall on the same week as Thanksgiving. So there have been occasions in the past where the meeting’s been vacated. It makes sense to me to just vacate it all the time forever because that holiday week’s never going to change, at least in our lifetimes.”

As it turns out, the actual wording of the approved resolution did not differentiate between election years and non-election years. So, the final outcome was shorter public comments, no comments read into the record but call-in comments still allowed (up to three minutes) and no council meeting on the fourth Tuesday of November.