A new proposal from Glendale Vice Mayor and Councilmember Ian Hugh seeks to change how individuals can give public comment to the City Council. If the proposal passed, people would only be given the opportunity to make a public comment after regular council meetings are over.
Vice Mayor and Councilmember Ian Hugh’s proposal would transition the current commenting system into a City Council citizen forum.
The proposal cites moderation issues, speaker time restrictions and people challenging public comment restrictions in other cities as some of the reasons for the new format.
Danee Garone is an attorney at the Arizona Ombudsman's office who specializes in open meeting law. He said there’s only one part of the proposal that could be problematic.
“Based on this, there’s definitely a way it can be done without violating the open meeting law. The only issue that really jumped at me was the discretionary granting of more speaking time to individual speakers," Garone said.
He's is talking about how speakers in the new forum will have a minimum of 3 minutes to talk, and at the mayor’s discretion, additional time could be granted.
If passed, the new forum for public comment will not be recorded. The council will vote on the proposal Tuesday.
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