Laserfiche WebLink
�►#ta�h mcnt l. N. <br />Guod evening. My name is Richard Lambert I live at 800 Brenner Ave in Roscville an�l <br />I'm here tonight on behalf of the Roseville Citizens League. <br />We believe the public comment policy for council meetings n�.eds to he improved. The <br />existing policy allows any citizen with an inexhaustible supply of ill will and contempt, an <br />unlimited platform to spread their poison. This damages everyone in the city in two ways. <br />First, allowing any person to waste 15%to 25% of each and every meeting greatly extends <br />the length of the meetings. It's a proven fact that mental fatigue is caused by continual <br />mental effort and attention on a particular task, as well as high levels of stress or emotion. <br />Each of you puts in a full days work before the council meetings even start. You cannot do <br />your besf work when one person is allowed to speak on everything and thereby drag the <br />meetings on for 3, 4 or even 5 hours. Think about it. How comfortable would you be if you <br />knew thatyour financial adviser devised a critical plan foryour future after putting in a 12 <br />to 14 hour day? You need to adopt a comment policy that permits inpui without allowing <br />un-elected citizens to extend meeting times to ilie point where your decision-making ability <br />is impaired. <br />Second, and more important to Roscville's future, when you allow anyone to create a <br />sulfurous atmosphere at council meetings it discourages qualified people from running for <br />the council. Why would az�ybody in their right mind run for an office where their <br />predecessors had essentially abandoned any attempt to impose civility on the people who <br />appearbefore them? Who by inaction had tacitly approved and thereby established a <br />precedent of �erniitting atrocious abusive behavior. You might give some thought to who <br />is left to run for office if people in their right mind won't? Yon need to adopt a public <br />comment policy that prevents an extremely small minority from poisoning the ���ell of <br />future office holders. <br />Jay Squires has considerable expertise in this area by virtue of his service to a county <br />board that also had to contend with a citizen who didn't know how to play well with others. <br />He's been through a court ease for that county on public comment and helped them devise <br />a policy that has allowed them to get past this type of individual with a minimum of delay <br />and disruption. We recommend you solicit his advice. <br />Public comment is invaluable to help you to keep in touch with citizens and it also provides <br />a safety valve to let people vent their frustration. However, tlie current policy on public <br />comment is counterproductive. We recommend you do the following: <br />Workwith city attorney Jay Squires and adopt a code of conduct that requires <br />speakers to be civil and caurteous. <br />2. Establish the mayor's right to encl a speaker's comment privilege at any time if they <br />break �lie code of conduct. <br />3. Allot a set amount of time for pubiic comment )�efor-e the televised meeting. If there <br />are more speakers than that time can accommodate, suspend comments and resume <br />after thc business meeting has concluded, again with the cameras off. <br />4. Establish a 3 or 4-minute time limit for each speaker per meetin�. Speaking from <br />prepared comments, rather than ad-libbing, makes it fairly easy to meet this time <br />limit. Install colored lights to help speakers by providing �iicr�i with a 30 second <br />warning and to indicate when their time is up <br />