BERLIN – Citizens are adjusting to a new council agenda format at Berlin’s town meetings.
In recent months, the town has updated its meeting agenda format and has limited public comments to a dedicated portion of the meeting. While the changes came as a surprise to some in attendance at this week’s meeting, Mayor Zack Tyndall said the new practices related to the growing trend of First Amendment audits.
“It’s the time we live in,” Tyndall said.
Dozens of citizens attended this week’s town council meeting, as two hot topics — a Berlin skate park and short-term rentals — were on the agenda. They quickly grew frustrated when attempts to ask questions or interject comments were silenced by elected officials, who advised them they’d be able to speak at the end of the meeting during the portion set aside for public comments. When that time arrived, residents expressed their frustration.
“Why were questions excluded from this meeting?” resident Marie Velong said. “That wasn’t the way the dialogue used to be. You exclude questions from the public at a time that would be relevant to the topic at hand. Waiting until the end and not answering does nothing for communication with the people that are attending. To me I don’t do any better now coming to this meeting than I would sitting at home watching it. It seems like we should have some say in how you construct your agenda.”
Resident Kim Holloway also commented.
“I’m a little disappointed as well we don’t get any answers when we have questions,” she said.
Tyndall attempted to address the issue when it came time for his comments. He said it pained him to not be able to respond to citizens, many of whom he’d known his entire life. He said the changes to the agenda and meeting procedure were related to First Amendment audits. The audits are a largely social movement in which citizens walk into municipal meetings and buildings with their cameras in hand to film government in action.
“Unfortunately, a lot of our time, staff time, council time, conference time, is committed to these First Amendment auditors, and training and direction from legal counsel — LGIT, our legal counsel — on how to handle it and how to structure our meetings, our daily operations,” Tyndall said. “It’s not something that’s really a high point I think of when I think of the service a community organization like the Town of Berlin provides to our residents. Please know it doesn’t bring me joy.”
He added that the new agenda format, which includes a consent agenda, proclamations, discussion and items for approval as well as specific sections for comments from the public, council and mayor, had been developed in line with those of neighboring jurisdictions.
“Our meeting structure is not uncommon,” he said. “What we did is we pulled from other resources, even throughout Worcester County. Our meeting agenda and the language that’s on here is the exact same thing you may see in another municipality within Worcester County.”
He added that some public meetings didn’t even provide citizens with the option of commenting.
“It’s something that we have valued for a long time,” he said. “We love the feedback, positive or negative or critical or not critical.”
The mayor said hearing from citizens was important to Berlin officials and would not be disappearing. He added that he kept track of comments and would follow up with residents.
