public comment Feb 7, 97

Responding to public suggestions Supervisor James Pax has called for an “informal trial pilot program” allowing public comment at the beginning or town public meetings.

Pax will put the subject on the agenda for the next town public meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Feb, 18. The program is expected to begin in March.

In the workshop meeting held before the Feb. 3 Town Public Meeting Pax had suggested an open discussion session to be held at 7:45 p.m. before the scheduled 8 p.m. meeting.

“But I started thinking,” Pax said. “I really don’t see that people are going to use a lot of time if limited to agenda items. If we started at 7:45 p.m. we might just be left sitting there. So I decided that maybe a pilot program, where we could test the idea of letting people speak at the beginning of the meeting might be a good idea. We might try it for a few months, not officially, but by just adding it to the agenda.”

Pax thinks that there shouldn’t be a set limit to the time people could speak on agenda items.

“We don’t want to limit people’s speech,” Pax said. “Some meetings public comment might be just two minutes, others five, and if it is really a controversial subject that people want to comment On, I don’t want to cut people off.”

At the workshop meeting on Feb 3, Councilman Jim Sharpe recommended a change in town public meeting procedures to allow public comment at the beginning of meetings as well as at the end.

Sharpe called his future resolution an “Open Government Resolution’ It had called for public comment at the beginning of public meetings on agenda items limited to three minutes. Speakers would be recognized by the Supervisor. A Portion of the meeting at the end would still be reserved for general questions and comments from the floor.

The resolution is a result of a promise of board members during a town Board Workshop meeting on Jan. 2 that they would look into modifying public meeting rules ~o allow greater public input.

At Monday’s Town Board Workshop Meeting Sandra Styka noted that three fourths of nearby town and villages had already adopted similar rules.

Controversy had arisen from a Town Board Meeting on Dec. 16 when residents felt they were excluded from comment before a vote on competing Town Center Plans.