Ancel Glink Q of the Month - Limits on Public Comment
Can we limit the total time for public
comment at our city council meetings to 30 minutes, and each commenter to 3
minutes?
Yes, so long as the city council has
adopted rules for public comment. In a number of advisory opinions, the Public
Access Counselor of the Attorney General's Office upheld similar time
limitations on public comment. The PAC cautioned, however, that in order to
restrict public comment in any way, the public body must have approved public
comment rules. Having a long-standing
practice of limiting the time frame for public comment is not sufficient to
satisfy the requirement of approved rules, according to the PAC. So, if your public body has routinely placed
restrictions on public comment (time limits, sign-ins, etc), it should adopt
rules for public comment to incorporate those practices.
Post Authored by Julie Tappendorf
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