City Council Reduces Public Comment Time
In an effort to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, on February 18, 2025 City Council voted to reduce the amount of time available for public comments at the evening Public Comment meeting from 3 hours to 2 hours. The vote was 5-3 with Mayor Cowell and Councilors Forte, Lambert-Melton, Silver and Branch voting in favor while Councilors Patton, Harrison and Jones voted against.
The existing limit of 3 hours was put in place February 20, 2024 based on recommendations elicited by the council from the Community Engagement Board.
In 2024 there were 7 public comment meetings held using these rules. NO MEETING ever went over 2 hours. But, the 3 hour time limit was used to allocate how many minutes, up to a maximum of 3, each speaker received.
Speakers are required to sign up to speak by the Friday prior to the meeting. The amount of time each speaker receives is based on the number of sign ups.
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- 0 – 55 speakers get 3 mins each
- 56 – 82 speakers get 2 mins each
- 83 – 165 speakers get 1 min each
With the time reduced from 3 hours to 2, these sign up allocations will have to change as follows:
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- 0 – 35 speakers get 3 mins each
- 36 – 52 speakers get 2 mins each
- 53 – 105 speakers get 1 min each
The allotted speaking time is assigned based on sign ups, NOT on show ups. So, when the actual meeting happens, many of the speakers who signed up, don’t show up. But, the speakers’ allotted time was still reduced based on the the number who signed up.
As I said, there were 7 Public Comment meetings in 2024 under these rules. None of them ever went over 2 hours, mostly because so many speakers don’t show up.
If you use the new rules and apply them to the actual results from 2024, 4 of the 7 meetings would end up allocating LESS time to each speaker because of the new 2 hour limit.
This is because speakers would have their time reduced from 2 minutes to 1 minute each when more than 52 speakers sign up. These same 4 meetings would have only run from 30 to 45 minutes in total.
So, in a misguided attempt to reduce Public Comment meetings from 3 hours to 2 hours in length, what City Council has done is put in place new limits when in fact, no meeting in 2024 ever went over 2 hours.
But now, based on the new rules, a majority of the meetings will run less than 45 minutes and speakers will be given less time to make their point.
Is it an effective use of city resources and staff to hold an evening meeting each month that will more likely than not run for 45 minutes or less?
Was there any reason to change the rules of these meeting when they NEVER went over 2 hours under the existing rules?
Livable Raleigh Editorial Team
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