May 20—The Grand Forks City Council last year made changes
to the rules that govern public comments at twice-per-month council meetings.
Among them were two that should have been viewed as friendly to speakers, including increasing each speaker’s time from three minutes to five and moving the comment period to the beginning of the meeting.
Now, the council is considering more changes
after months of meetings that have, at times, degraded with contentious and personal comments.
The proposals include limiting speakers to only those who own property or have business interests in Grand Forks, and allowing public comments only at the twice-per-month Committee of the Whole meetings, which include all council members but at which no hard decisions are made.
Hopefully, some revisions happen, because it’s time for change.
It’s time to tighten the rules of speaking at council meetings because those gatherings sometimes become a morass of unnecessarily mean and inappropriate comments. Sometimes, it’s happening in front of young guests who have been invited to council meetings to lead the Pledge of Allegiance or to be honored for some achievement or another.
The now-dead Fufeng issue stirred controversy like none other in the community’s history, but our hope — for the sake of productive meetings and at least a semblance of community harmony — is to begin moving beyond it.
Perhaps rules similar to those in place in Fargo might be adopted. There, discriminatory or inflammatory language is disallowed. Also, speakers may only address an issue, and not a person.
These are good policies and should be considered in Grand Forks.
Fargo also has standards in place that only allow for two and a half minutes for each speaker. That’s not enough time and would hint at an effort to stifle comments, rather than promote good dialogue between speakers and decision-makers.
Earlier this week, the Grand Forks City Council discussed an “example” code of conduct that included a number of possible new policies.
Two should be strongly considered, including:
* “Audience members will refrain from disruptive behavior, including making loud noises, clapping, shouting, booing, hissing, interrupting council members or other members of the public or engaging in any other activity that disturbs, disrupts or impedes the orderly conduct of the meeting.”
* “Audience members will refrain from creating, provoking or participating in any type of disturbance involving unwelcome physical contact or verbal abuse.”
Meanwhile, steer clear of possible rules that could lead to ambiguity or subjective decisions, such as this one, which was included in the “example” list on Monday: “In exercising discretion to permit public comment, the council president will consider the expected duration of the meeting; number of agenda items to be addressed; the number of speaker requests received; relevance of the proposed subject matter to the operations of Grand Forks; timeliness of the subject matter of the request … and whether the subject matter of the request is within the council’s authority to address.”
Make new rules that promote a better environment for governing at City Council meetings, while eliminating personal attacks on individual council members and city leaders.
Make these changes, but do so without unnecessarily limiting the public’s ability to still speak freely at council meetings. The public must be able to offer comments — including critiques and criticisms — as they always have.
Leave their time at five minutes and keep them at the beginning of the meeting. Leave comments at the actual council meetings, rather than at Committee of the Whole. That way, attendees with comments will be in attendance as decisions are made, rather than just discussed.
Also continue to let nonresidents speak — this could be seen as a good concession as other changes are made.
We agree with Grand Forks resident Gretchen Graf, who attended a recent council meeting and later told the Herald “when I tell the story of hearing the tone of comments (at council meetings), that people are equally surprised. I think the right word is ‘sad.'”
She continued: “My only issue is, let’s be nice to each other even when we disagree.”
