Arroyo Grande council changes public comment on non-agenda items to one minute 

Arroyo Grande is the latest city in San Luis Obispo County to change the structure of its public comment period after concerns that the time allowed per person takes attention away from important business items.

During the Aug. 13 City Council meeting, council members discussed the possibility of moving public comment for items not on the agenda to the end of the meeting. They ultimately decided to keep that slot at the beginning of the meeting and reduce speaker time from three minutes per person to one.

click to enlarge

• File Photo By Samantha Herrera
• GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS The Arroyo Grande City Council recently voted to change public comment time on items not on the agenda from three minutes to one minute per person. 

Mayor Caren Ray Russom said the conversation started after she spoke with Atascadero Mayor Heather Moreno.

"She didn't understand why they had public comment at the beginning of the agenda and not the end because why would you take walk-ins over reservations, and that struck me very strongly," Russom said on Aug. 13. "We have people who pay a lot of money to come through our process; we have consultants that sit here, and that costs money; we have our own consultants that sit here and cost us money. So that just makes conceptual sense."

Councilmember Jim Guthrie disagreed with Russom, saying that he sees public comment as a way for the community to engage with the council instead of just sending emails to city staff.

Guthrie suggested the council could limit public comment to one minute per person for items not on the agenda to make the meetings move more efficiently.

"That's plenty of time for someone to make their specific statement, and then if there are specifics related to that, then they could cover those in some sort of written document so that the general public would be able to get their concerns out here without having to wait and sit through an entire meeting," he said.

City Manager Matthew Downing said other cities have adopted new public comment policies, including Atascadero, which allows public comment for items not on the agenda after the council gets through the consent agenda.

"Our neighbor Grover Beach just changed it to be the end of the meeting; the Lucia Mar School District has public comment at the end of the meeting, and they've had that for a couple of years," Downing said. "Another option, other agencies will limit public comment from three minutes down to two minutes. The Coastal Commission even limits it down to a minute."

Grover Beach City Manager Matthew Bronson told New Times that the Grover Beach City Council adopted the change in during its July 22 meeting. Comment about items not on the agenda will now to be heard at the end of the meeting after the consent agenda, public hearing, and business items are considered.

"This change enables public comments on items on the meeting agenda to be heard first before other items," he said.

Arroyo Grande residents present at the Aug. 13 meeting weren't happy with the new proposal. One Arroyo Grande community member told the council during public comment that she worked at Caltrans for more than 30 years, sat through many public comment periods, and while reducing the time period seems wise, it's important to remember that it's empowering for people to directly address the council with their concerns.

"I would like to see that be early in the meeting so that it's predictable for people to be able to come in from no matter what they are doing," she said. "I think it's just really important, just from a community engagement and public standpoint, that people have the ability to do that. I'd be concerned that ... moving it late or even in a way that's kind of unpredictable might have unintended consequences of discouraging people from coming forward."

Resident Shannon Kessler said that moving public comment time for items not on the agenda could make it harder for parents of young children to be able to attend.

"Caren, our kids went to school together, and now they're grown, but remember when they were in school and we had homework to help them do and how we had to get them to bed, and some people have their younger kids that they might need babysitting for," she said. "I appreciate the professionals coming in, ... but they're doing it as part of their business, and I think our citizens are grabbing that little bit of time they have in the early evening."

After hearing from the public, the council voted unanimously to keep public comment for items not on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting but to limit the time from three minutes to one minute per person. Δ