Public Comment -- Employee Complaints
City Council allows for public comment at the beginning of the regular
meeting. Any citizen who wishes to speak must turn in a request before the
meeting begins.
Citizen was stopped by pd. Citizen filed a complaint alleging the officers
were too aggressive and rude. Police Chief did not contact her immediately
after complaint was filed so she filed another complaint re chief.
Investigation into complaints is ongoing.
Citizen will be at next meeting and wants to speak regarding the conduct of
police department.
This is a long way of getting to the question - how do you handle personnel
issues when your council allows for public comment? I just hate to provide
a forum for anyone to complain about employees, particularly when the
council can't respond or defend the employee.
I've suggested that we shouldn't have a public comment option. That is not
an option. They want to allow the people to have a voice.
Thank you,
Kim Spady
My idea (formed after working in the AG's Office and dealing with Open Meetings on a regular basis) is “public meeting is NOT public speaking”. There is no requirement the public be allowed to speak, only that they know public business enacted.
However, many government entities are manned by elected officials who want their constituents to be able to speak which makes sense because they could be voters.
Your only hope is that the speaking time is limited (here it’s 3 minutes) and there’s a prepared statement for the Chair to read that this matter is an ongoing matter and the City can’t comment.
I hope it goes better than you expect.
Claudia
On Feb 28, 2020, at 4:02 PM, Kimberlee Spady Kim@spadylaw.com wrote:
City Council allows for public comment at the beginning of the regular meeting. Any citizen who wishes to speak must turn in a request before the meeting begins.
Citizen was stopped by pd. Citizen filed a complaint alleging the officers were too aggressive and rude. Police Chief did not contact her immediately after complaint was filed so she filed another complaint re chief.
Investigation into complaints is ongoing.
Citizen will be at next meeting and wants to speak regarding the conduct of police department.
This is a long way of getting to the question – how do you handle personnel issues when your council allows for public comment? I just hate to provide a forum for anyone to complain about employees, particularly when the council can’t respond or defend the employee.
I’ve suggested that we shouldn’t have a public comment option. That is not an option. They want to allow the people to have a voice.
Thank you,
Kim Spady
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Open mic night creates tons of issues.
Because there’s no right to citizen participation, and it occurs because we allow it, you are creating what could be a limited public forum. When the government creates a limited public forum, they can impose reasonable restrictions including the topics that can be discussed as well as time/place/manner restrictions. You can limit time. You can limit topics. Just not viewpoints.
So if this was a council manager form of government, you could rightly prohibit any discussion on individual employees if hired/fired by the council since council cannot get involved in personnel issues. That would mean no bad commentary but also no praise since you must be viewpoint neutral.
But changing the rules may require council vote depending on how the citizens participation got on the agenda and/or how existing restrictions got put in place.
Matt
Sent from Matt’s iPhone
On Feb 28, 2020, at 4:02 PM, Kimberlee Spady Kim@spadylaw.com wrote:
City Council allows for public comment at the beginning of the regular meeting. Any citizen who wishes to speak must turn in a request before the meeting begins.
Citizen was stopped by pd. Citizen filed a complaint alleging the officers were too aggressive and rude. Police Chief did not contact her immediately after complaint was filed so she filed another complaint re chief.
Investigation into complaints is ongoing.
Citizen will be at next meeting and wants to speak regarding the conduct of police department.
This is a long way of getting to the question – how do you handle personnel issues when your council allows for public comment? I just hate to provide a forum for anyone to complain about employees, particularly when the council can’t respond or defend the employee.
I’ve suggested that we shouldn’t have a public comment option. That is not an option. They want to allow the people to have a voice.
Thank you,
Kim Spady
--
Oama mailing list
Oama@lists.imla.org
http://lists.imla.org/mailman/listinfo/oama_lists.imla.org
That is why most councils place the public comment section at the end of the meeting (fewer people left to hear) or they allow public comment only for items already on the agenda, which this personnel issues would never be on.Mike Vanderburg
On Friday, February 28, 2020, 04:42:51 PM CST, Matt Love <matt.love@gmail.com> wrote:
Open mic night creates tons of issues.
Because there’s no right to citizen participation, and it occurs because we allow it, you are creating what could be a limited public forum. When the government creates a limited public forum, they can impose reasonable restrictions including the topics that can be discussed as well as time/place/manner restrictions. You can limit time. You can limit topics. Just not viewpoints.
So if this was a council manager form of government, you could rightly prohibit any discussion on individual employees if hired/fired by the council since council cannot get involved in personnel issues. That would mean no bad commentary but also no praise since you must be viewpoint neutral.
But changing the rules may require council vote depending on how the citizens participation got on the agenda and/or how existing restrictions got put in place.
Matt
Sent from Matt’s iPhone
On Feb 28, 2020, at 4:02 PM, Kimberlee Spady Kim@spadylaw.com wrote:
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City Council allows for public comment at the beginning of the regular meeting. Any citizen who wishes to speak must turn in a request before the meeting begins.
Citizen was stopped by pd. Citizen filed a complaint alleging the officers were too aggressive and rude. Police Chief did not contact her immediately after complaint was filed so she filed another complaint re chief.
Investigation into complaints is ongoing.
Citizen will be at next meeting and wants to speak regarding the conduct of police department.
This is a long way of getting to the question – how do you handle personnel issues when your council allows for public comment? I just hate to provide a forum for anyone to complain about employees, particularly when the council can’t respond or defend the employee.
I’ve suggested that we shouldn’t have a public comment option. That is not an option. They want to allow the people to have a voice.
Thank you,
Kim Spady
Oama mailing list
Oama@lists.imla.org
http://lists.imla.org/mailman/listinfo/oama_lists.imla.org
Oama mailing list
Oama@lists.imla.org
http://lists.imla.org/mailman/listinfo/oama_lists.imla.org