Council may cut speakers’ time short

Deepa Bharath

Residents wishing to speak on consent calendar items during City

Council meetings might have to keep a close watch on the clock.

The City Council is poised to vote tonight to limit speakers’ time

on such issues to three minutes rather than the currently allowed

five minutes, unless there is reason to give additional time.

The change in council policy was proposed by Mayor Tod Ridgeway

during the Jan. 13 council meeting.

The consent calendar, which usually has items that are considered

to be routine with recommendations from city staff, has taken far too

long during recent council meetings, the mayor said. Speaking times

would remain five minutes for the regular public comment section.

“It’s taking up to an hour and a half to do the consent calendar,”

he said. “That shortchanges the people who come to the meetings to

talk about the more important public hearings.”

Often, these speakers tend to repeat themselves, Ridgeway said.

“They say the same thing over and over again while people come out

of their homes and wait their turn to talk about more significant

issues,” he said.

The council will discuss whether to limit the time to three

minutes for public comment on the consent calendar or to put off the

consent calendar until after the public hearings, he said.

“More people are affected by the public hearings,” Ridgeway said.

“We need to prioritize that.”

That said, people who make a reasonable request will get the time

they ask for, he said.

“If they have something important to say or if they have a

presentation to make, we will give them the time they need to do

that,” Ridgeway said. “Our intent is to run a more efficient meeting

while giving people ample opportunity to voice their concerns.”

But Dolores Otting, a regular at council meetings, said she

believes the mayor is “taking our rights away.”

“It amounts to limiting the rights of the people,” she said.

The policy is fine the way it is, Otting said.

“I don’t understand what’s broken,” she said. “There’s nothing to

fix here.”

The argument that those speaking on other issues get shortchanged

is not good enough for Otting.

“They still get their five minutes,” she said.

Councilman Don Webb said he is leaning toward voting in favor of

the three-minute limit.

“Consent calendar items are pretty routine,” he said. “Three

minutes is a pretty fair amount of time. It seems reasonable to me.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.