OC Council Again Alters Public Comment Approach

OCEAN CITY – After several months of attempting to calm audience members by moving the public comment period to the beginning of legislative meetings, the Mayor and Council has decided to make another change as patience begins to wear thin.

Prior to the council meeting on Feb. 19, public comments were held at the end of the regular sessions, held biweekly on Monday evenings with a five-minute time limit.

Around that time, the council was going through a strategic planning process where it was brought up that issues were occurring during council meeting when members of the public would interject during discussions. The council decided to move the public comment period to the beginning of the meeting to allow citizens to air their concerns prior to discussions.

Public comments have since been allowed in the beginning of regular sessions and work sessions, which are held on Tuesdays biweekly, and were limited to three minutes. The only difference is during work session public comments are to strictly address agenda items.

In the last several weeks, public comments have become vigorous as the council has been working through the Fiscal Year 2014 budget. Members of the public have been turning out to speak on controversial topics, such as the decision to implement new areas of paid parking and cutting hours at the Ocean Bowl Skate Park, which was later reversed, all to save costs and generate new revenue.

The council meeting held on Monday, May 6, had almost 90 minutes of public comments, and on Monday, May 20, there was over two hours of public comments. All the while city staff and others are patiently waiting in the audience to be called upon to address an agenda item.

During this week’s work session, the council addressed the issue. Councilman Joe Mitrecic immediately began the discussion by asking the council to consider moving the public comment period back to the conclusion of the Monday evening meetings as well as raising the time limit back to five minutes.

“I would also encourage if we do this that the council not get into debate with people making a public comment,” Mitrecic said. “I think the comment should be a comment. They should state their opinion and then be able to walk back to their seat unencumbered by questions or issues with the council. If they do have questions at that point in time, those questions should be directed to the city manager and for him to answer or contact the city manager at a later time. Again, it is public comment time, not public question time.”

Council President Lloyd Martin agreed but felt public comments should be held at the beginning of work session and be directed toward specific agenda items so the council can take into consideration the public’s concerns during discussion.

“A lot of the time a member of the public is addressing someone on the council directly. There should not be personal attacks on the council or the mayor, or the body,” Martin added. “We have staff that is here waiting and we are paying them to be here, and most of the time it is out of their business hours … so it affects everybody when we are paying them overtime to be here. I believe comments from citizens are very public and we need to hear from everybody.”

Council Secretary Mary Knight furthered verbal attacks on the council are not appreciated but recognized it comes with the job of being an elected official.

“I would really hope that the personal attacks that some of our department heads have experienced recently, such as experiences using slight of hand, money grabbing and being unresponsive,” she said. “I would really hope if there are concerns like that that they are brought to the city manager and not directly attack our department heads because it is just not fair to them because they all work extremely hard and you know that.”

Councilwoman Margaret Pillas had no problem with members of the public directly addressing her during public comments.

“Welcome to the United States … this is the place where they are allowed to say what’s on their mind,” she said.

Councilman Brent Ashley, who was against the change in the first place, found it curious the majority of the council was moving to change the public comment period again.

“After all the public comments at the last couple meetings, now you all want to change it back to the way it was to start with,” he said.

Knight made a motion to move public comments back to the end of Monday night regular sessions and the time limit be extended back to five minutes. She added if members of the public wish to speak they are to sign up with the City Clerk giving their name and the general topic they would like to speak about, and the City Clerk is to give some kind of signal to the council president as the five-minute time limit nears.

The council voted unanimously to approve the motion.