Celebrate citizen participation --John S. Quarterman

A message to the only elected body in Lowndes County that represents the entire county. I've added a few links, and otherwise what you see is the suggestions I sent to the Commissioners and the County Clerk Thursday after offering them Tuesday. -jsq

From: John S. Quarterman
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 1:40 PM
To: [email protected]
Cc: Paige Dukes
Subject: Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to be Heard

Dear Commissioners,

At your most recent meeting I mentioned I had a few suggestions about your new Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing To Be Heard, and at least one of you has indicated he would like to see them, so here they are.

"2. A maximum of 10 persons shall be allowed to speak at any meeting."

I think that number is too low. On the one hand,

I've never heard of more than ten people showing up to speak in Citizens Wishing to be Heard before this County Commission. On the other hand, if they do, something important may be going on in the community that the Board needs to hear about. Nine people showed up at the most recent meeting to speak directly or indirectly about this very set of Policies and Procedures, and more might have. I would suggest deleting #2.

"3. A maximum of three persons shall be allowed to speak on any one subject."

It may take more than three people to raise all aspects of a subject, or someone may think of another aspect after three people have spoken; this is a form of public dialog.

I believe you heard at least one person Tuesday suggest raising this limit.

And I think you heard a suggestion to do as the Zoning Board of Appeals does: after some reasonable number of people (perhaps 5), ask if there are any persons wishing to express different concerns on the same subject, and if not, ask for a show of hands for who supports the previous speakers on the subject.

I tend to agree with what the VDT said last summer (13 June 2010):

"If a hundred citizens arrive, and each wishes to speak on the same subject, well, they should have the opportunity to say their piece."

So I suggest deleting the limit and also doing as ZBOA does, which will probably get a lot of people to agree not to repeat what somebody else just said.

"4. Persons shall be allowed to speak on a first-come, first-served basis."

Does that mean speakers should line up in front of the microphone, or does it mean in the order people sign up on the sign-up sheet? If the latter, will someone read off the next speaker's name from the sheet? I think that's how they do it in Hahira. Please clarify.

"6. Each speaker's time to speak shall be limited to five minutes."

I think this is a fine idea, since it should prevent any individual from preventing others from speaking. Provided there is some flexibility, for example when commissioners choose to interact with the speaker.

"7. Commissioners may in their discretion respond to a speaker at the conclusion of the speaker's presentation."

This is good, but could be extended a bit, to everyone's benefit. Sometimes a commissioner may have a ready response to part of a speaker's question which may be usefully interjected right then. Sometimes a commissioner may ask staff to answer in dialog, as happened at the previous Commission meeting (11 Jan 2011) when I was asking for clarification about speed limits. Sometimes a commissioner may even ask someone sitting in the audience for information, as happened at the most recent commission meeting, in another form of dialog. Perhaps something like this:

"7. Commissioners may in their discretion respond to a speaker during or at the conclusion of the speaker's presentation, or may request county staff to do the same; commissioners may also request information from members of the audience."

I'm sure you or the county attorney can think of better wording.

"8. The Board of Commissioners shall not vote on matters presented during "Citizens Wishing to be Heard"".

That's a prudent clause. I do wonder if there's a means to get an item on the Board's agenda for them to discuss and vote on at a later meeting? Maybe this clause could include something about that, such as ", however, a speaker may request the Board to place an item on their agenda for discussion and vote at a later meeting."

"10. To speak at the Board of Commissioners during "Citizens Wishing to be Heard", a person must be a resident or property taxpayer of Lowndes County."

While I applaud the intent of sticking to local business, sometimes local people may need to bring in someone from elsewhere for their information or expertise. This could even be someone who used to live in the county and who has historical information that no one else now possesses. Given that people from other states have been known to speak for developers during rezoning cases, it would seem odd if after rezoning a problem arose that could only be addressed by someone from out of state and such a person could not speak in Citizens Wishing to be Heard. Perhaps you could add: ", or must be introduced by a resident or property taxpayer of Lowndes County."

"12. Persons shall not make impertinent, derogatory, personal, offensive, or slanderous remarks."

This is the clause I was referring to when I mentioned "vague and arbitrary." The problem is: impertinent, derogatory, or offensive are in the eye and ear of the beholder. People do have different ways of expressing themselves, and some of them may seem offensive to some people but not to others. For example, at a previous Commission meeting during a rezoning case the requestor wanted to go from R-1 or some such zoning to EA and a commissioner said loudly "You mean you want to go backwards?" I considered that impertinent, derogatory, and offensive, even if none of the Commissioners did. Yet I don't object to the Commissioner saying it.

As for slander, there are laws against that, so it hardly seems necessary to have a clause here about it. Similarly, if a speaker should escalate to actual threats (which has never happened in a Commission meeting to my knowledge), there are already laws against that.

May I suggest something like:

"12. Citizens, commissioners, and staff are asked to conduct themselves with decorum and mutual respect."

I know decorum and mutual respect are also in the eye of the beholder, but note "asked to" rather than "shall not".

"13. Subjects on which speakers may speak shall be limited to subjects concerning the business of the Board of Commissioners."

I'm not sure what this means. It can't mean only items on the agenda, or there would be no point in Citizens Wishing to be Heard. Given that citizens may want to speak to ask for an item to be put on the agenda, how can the Board know in advance what that business may be?

While the Board of Commissioners is officially known to the State as the Board of Roads and Revenue, it remains the only local elected body for all of Lowndes County. More on this below about the WHEREASes. I do not have any suggested rewording for #13, since I see it could serve a purpose in reminding people not to come to speak about trivial subjects.

However, the simplest way to avoid problems with #13 might be to delete it, since almost anything could concern the business of the Board of Commissioners.

"14. The Board of Commissioners may limit speech on subjects that the Board of Commissioners believes to be closed."

Well, this is a tricky one, isn't it? If the Board must decide this, and the Board shall not vote on matters presented during Citizens Wishing to be Heard (#8), the Board cannot close a subject during a given meeting; also the Chairman alone cannot close a subject. For that matter, how does the Board know on what subjects the citizens should not speak? They are citizens, after all, not subjects. I understand that the board may become tired of hearing about some subject again and again, but the time limit per speaker and the limit on the number of speakers per subject together limit the total time per meeting per subject. If citizens consider a subject important enough to keep showing up meeting after meeting, maybe it is important enough for the Board to hear it again and again until the subject is resolved and the citizens of their own free will stop coming to speak about it.

So I suggest removing #14 entirely, and I also suggest removing the reference to closed subjects from #15.

Finally, the WHEREASes in the draft provoked this reaction from at least one reader:

"This is all about limiting speech for the convenience of the Commission; what's in it for the citizens?"

The reason I support some sort of policies and procedures is exactly to support and celebrate citizen participation in local government. Conducting orderly and efficient meetings can contribute greatly to citizen participation by ensuring that no one person or party or subject hogs the floor and thus that no one prevents others from speaking.

The First Amendment may or may not entitle a person to speak during Citizens Wishing to be Heard on any subject on which he or she desires; I am not a lawyer, so I can't say.

I can say that the County Commission is the only elected body in Lowndes County that represents the entire county, and thus its meetings are the only public venues at which citizens may publicly address their elected officials for redress of grievances, to raise concerns about other bodies, or for that matter to compliment officials or staff on doing good work.

To quote Chairman Paulk from September 2009:

"The job we're in is listening to the public."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdMO3jUSsmk&feature=related

I applaud Chairman Paulk for encouraging people to come to his and the other Commissioners' offices to discuss matters. I recognize that people can call on the telephone and, even better, send written comments to Commissioners that will thus become part of the public record. But there is also value in speaking in a public meeting where the speaker can be seen and the Commissioners can be seen to listen; value beyond all other means of addressing the Commission.

Sure, you and we probably don't want people showing up to complain about their neighbor's taste in ice cream, and probably not to complain about who won the Super Bowl, even if this a sports-crazy community.

But I for one do want people showing up to say there's a problem in the county that no other body is addressing. The Commission may not have any direct or specific power to redress such a grievance. But the Commissioners do have referent power, in that their opinions do matter, especially to the members of unelected boards whom they appoint.

Simply providing a forum, limited as it must be in time and space, for citizens to raise their concerns, has its own power. As we have seen recently, people do care what is said before you in your meetings; people well beyond the walls of your meeting hall.

And I think that's a good thing. So may I suggest a few WHEREASes encouraging citizens to come and express their compliments and concerns to their county-wide elected Board, and celebrating "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

You are our local government, and the citizens will thank you for representing us.

-jsq
John S. Quarterman
[email protected]
residence: 6565 Quarterman Road, Hahira
postal: 3338 Country Club Road #L336, Valdosta, GA 31605