Council Writes New Rules On Public Participation

Neighborhood Meeting with Council, 2019

Will we ever circle back?  

Council Writes New Rules For Public Participation in response to uncivil  comments by "SafeEastside" anti-homeless protesters.

Only for city business are citizens allowed to speak during City Hall "Items from the Audience."  All speakers must conclude their public comments within three minutes.  Any public comments made after three minutes are considered disruptive and may result in removal of the speaker from the meeting.  

Public commenters may not provide any comments which would be considered:

1. incitement, 
2. fighting words (words likely to provoke the average person to retaliation, and thereby cause a breach of the peace), 
3. true threats (occur when the speaker “means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals), 
4. obscenity (material which appeals to the prurient interest in sex, depict or describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value), 
5. or any other type of speech which is not legally protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. 

Enforcement of Rules – The Chair  (Mayor) of the meeting shall preserve the order and decorum of meeting at all times. If an individual fails to comply with these rules, the Chair of the meeting, or any council member may, by way of a point of order to the chair of the meeting, issue a warning to the individual that the individual’s behavior is out of order. 

If the individual continues to engage in activity that these rules prohibit, the Chair of the meeting may: 

a. Terminate the individual’s comment period; 

b. Direct security staff to assist an individual to the individual’s seat; or 

c. Direct security staff to remove the individual from the meeting room. 

2. Any individual ordered to be removed from a meeting pursuant to this rule shall be excluded from returning to that same meeting from which the individual was removed. 

3. Speakers will be banned if necessary.  

To watch the participation discussion on the Business meeting video / advance to 1:49:00.  

Posted by Yoder, 5/17/2024, updated 6/4