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.
-
A federal judge in Massachusetts paused the Trump administration's deferred resignation offer until Monday, when he will hear the merits of the case.
-
Last fall, Arizona’s version of Medicaid, known as AHCCCS, was found to have improperly issued contracts with health care companies for services to 26,000 older adults and people with disabilities. A new bill proposes to fix these issues.
-
Mexico’s president made a deal with President Donald Trump on Monday to delay tariffs for at least a month.
-
A bill sponsored by state Republican lawmakers would allow golf courses to let patrons bring their own alcohol onto the course.
-
A group of reporters spent two years analyzing hundreds of hours of the most popular podcasts from “the Manosphere," and President Donald Trump’s appearance on those shows seems to be informing his policy-making.