Item 4c on next Tuesdays Board of Supervisors Agenda: “Discussion and Possible Action Including Direction to Staff Regarding “Rule 18a: Public Expression” of the Rules of Procedure of the Board of Supervisors (Sponsor: Supervisor Haschak).”
Supervisor John Haschak explains the problem:
“The 10-minute rule for a single subject in Public Expression (items not on the Board of Supervisors Agenda) has been in the Rules of Procedure for many years and has been implemented at the discretion of the Chair. The issue includes balancing the reasonable availability of public expression for items not on the agenda with achieving the efficient and effective operation of a public meeting with scheduled business so that taxpayer money is not wasted. When there is unlimited public expression at the beginning of the meeting (which can range from none to multiple hours), lengthy public expression can significantly delay the timing of publicly noticed/agendized items, leading to government inefficiency, e.g., when staff has to wait for their item as opposed to working on other departmental business. However, adherence to the 10-minute rule is problematic in that some items are debatable, and/or not clearly defined as a single topic. Additionally, if public expression has an overall cap in time allowing for up to three minutes each, some people may be unable to speak if they are later in line.”
Such are the pressing challenges of being Board chair when there’s so much public expression to ignore. Should we keep the ten minute rule? Should we let Haschak decide? What about all the important business that must be delayed by having to listen to the public? How will Supervisor Williams know what the public wants? What about the pot brigades (and the anti-pot brigades) who can wear us out with their parades of complainers taking “multiple hours” of the Board’s own valuable blather time? What if some of our friends are cut off when the buzzer sounds? And perhaps the worst: if the public is allowed to go on for very long, it might lead to the dreaded “government inefficiency.”
By the way, in all our years of watching Board meetings we have never seen pubic expression last for “multiple hours.” But apparently Haschak has to throw that in their to make it seem like this is a momentous problem that must be dealt as a priority over other county matters by a lengthy discussion of one teensy, trivial aspect of their “Rules of Procedure.”
Fresh off last month’s highly efficient two-day blatherfest (“workshop”) that cost almost $6,000 for a one-day facilitator and produced zero tangible results, Haschak offers some alternative ways of keeping public expression from getting out of hand, interfering with of the Board’s Herculean efforts to re-make Official Mendo into the well-oiled machine that it is today:
- Leave the rule as is, allowing the Chair to use discretion in applying the rule when needed, in the interests of efficiency, combined with the Chair gauging the number of people who want to speak on certain topics.
- Delete 10-minute per subject from the rule, leave the 3 minute per person cap and allow for unlimited overall time for Public Expression.
- Limit public expression to an overall cap, e.g., 30 minutes. No single topic limit. Individual speakers will be counted and individual time determined by Chair, ranging from 1-3 minutes each, depending on the number of speakers.
- Spreading out public expression, e.g., 20 minutes at beginning of meeting, 20 minutes before lunch, and any remaining comments after Supervisor reports.
- For debatable issues, allow 3 speakers pro and 3 speakers con with 2.5 minutes each.
- Change the time of Public Expression for after all regularly calendared items and prior to adjournment.
There may be other options as well to be discussed during the meeting. It would be helpful for the Board to set a course that respects the availability of public expression and the efficiency of conducting the public’s business at each meeting.
Here’s another option: Move public expression to after adjournment when the Board and staff have left the building. Put a notice up on the projection screen that says: “We value your input. Thank you. We’ll leave the lights on and the camera rolling. Take all the time you like.” The Board need not be on hand to ignore public expression. Talk about efficiency!
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