Council Says Moving Comments to End of Meeting Will Provide More Voices For Matters on The Agenda

The City Council on Monday night discussed moving public comment to the end of City Council meetings in an informational item.

Late last month, Mayor Victor Gordo announced that the 20-minute public comment period on matters not on the meeting agenda would be moved to the end of Council meetings going forward.

The move drew the ire of several people inside and outside of Pasadena.

On Monday City Councilmembers said they felt a small number of people had hijacked the public comment time.

“What weighs heavily on me is when the public does not have the opportunity to participate in matters on the agenda, some of them for final action,” Gordo said.

The committee reported that Glendale and Santa Monica Councils and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors take public comment on matters not on the agenda after consideration of all agendized items.

The Ralph M. Brown Act, which controls open meetings, mandates that the public must be given the opportunity to speak on matters not on the agenda. However, the Brown Act does not dictate when those comments must be heard.

At the meeting, some members of the City Council voiced their support to the new format, saying that non-Pasadena residents have dominated the public comments on items not related to the agenda and impeded the Council’s ability to hear Pasadena residents and to efficiently work business on the agenda.

“For residents to have to wait until the end of the meeting is not optimal,” Councilmember Madison said. “But I think the sentiment overall was that it is occurring already because of a persistent group that continues to monopolize the public comment on items not on the agenda, many of them are not Pasadena residents.”

“It’s almost like the public comment is being hijacked week after week after week on issues a small segment of community and beyond – outside the community of Pasadena – feel are important,” Madison added.

The City Council cannot give preferential treatment to Pasadena residents during public comment.

“This is an attack on the free speech rights of Pasadenans to not allow the voice of the public to start the meetings,” wrote Julieta Aragon. “First, by moving general public comment to the end limits the ability for working-class residents to participate. Many residents will find it difficult to wait until 9 p.m. or later to get to this agenda item and speak. Additionally, by making this abrupt change the council is sending a clear signal that the recent uptick in public comments about police violence in this city are not welcome in the council chambers.”

Councilmember John Kennedy said he was torn on the matter.

“I’m torn,” Kennedy said. “I like the fact that it is a pilot, but I want you to know the gravity of my sentiments and concern and not stifle people with young children. We must be cognizant of that and we need to be empathetic.”

Kennedy previously said, parents, the elderly, and people who have to get to work or class early the next morning might have to wait up to five or more hours to provide their 90-second comment to the City Council.

A number of observers opposed the change, calling it a way to limit freedom of speech and suppress criticism.

“The real motivation is to stop certain members of the community from speaking and that’s the real reason,” Ryan Bell said. If the issue were efficiency, the chair of the meeting is in control of the meeting and the timing of the meeting and really long speeches by council members are the things that make the meeting go long, maybe address that instead of silencing members of the community that say things that you don’t want to hear.”

Monday night’s agenda contains a document detailing information developed by a three-person City Council Ad Hoc Committee formed to discuss and analyze City Council procedural issues and rules related to meetings. The Committee was comprised of Councilmember Madison, Councilmember Williams, and Mayor Gordo.

“This is intended to provide us more public comment on matters that are agendized,” said Mayor Gordo.

“Do you think it’s not your job to listen to the public?” said Brittany Pollack.