East Lansing City Council Considering Earlier Meeting Times and Shortened Public Comment
In recent months, East Lansing City Council meetings have been packed with heated public comment from local residents and advocates railing against decisions the city has made in regards to ordinances concerning the unhoused community and allegations of police brutality.
And for months extensive public comment has extended meetings on for hours, at times past midnight. At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the body could approve rule changes to shorten the length of public comment and create other regulations during city meetings.
At last week’s meeting, all members of City Council expressed some level of support for shortening the duration a person is allowed to speak during public comment.
Councilmember Kerry Ebersole Singh said at last week’s meeting she was surprised when she was elected to council to find out that the public comment limit was so long, considering three minutes is fairly standard across governments.
East Lansing’s five minute limit is far longer than neighboring communities like Meridian Township and Lansing which outline that three minutes maximum will be afforded to speakers during public comments.
The voice of the community is irreplaceable in governmental affairs, Councilmember Steve Whelan said last week and has reiterated at city meetings while residents and advocates have spent hours railing against the city and its police department, accusing them of unfairly persecuting two Black men during Michigan State University’s welcome week and as the city took up ordinances to limit loitering and public camping.
At the same time, Whelan said when public comment lasts hours, some people feel like they can’t speak as the wait to have their voice heard extends into the late hours.
“I know for a fact when it’s a long period of time, there’s some people who feel like they can’t wait that long,” he said. “They can’t, they want to speak up… and I think we’ve been prohibitive of people’s freedom of speech by the length of time it takes sometimes. So I think to try to get more comments is the goal, and I think we’ll get more comments from a three minute perspective than a five minute perspective.”
The rule changes that will be considered tonight would also create new rules that would ban disruptive behavior, like clapping or booing, during public comment or when staff or City Council members are speaking.
“Comments or actions by persons in the audience by voice, clapping, or otherwise, showing approval or disapproval of any remarks of the speaker, member(s) of the City Council, or City staff are not allowed,” new language in the proposed resolution reads.
Another change the city council will consider in the interest of ensuring meetings don’t go past midnight would be possibly starting meetings at 6 pm. Instead of the current 7 p.m. start time.
Council members had a bit of back and forth at last week’s meeting about what exact time they’d like meetings to begin and the conclusion was to write in the proposed change that “meetings shall ordinarily begin no later than 7:00 p.m. However, the Council may by majority vote, establish a different time for a specific meeting,” in order to open up the possibility to earlier meetings.
No members of City Council expressed an issue with their ability to attend meetings at 6 or 6:30 p.m., but Councilmember Mark Meadows said it would be good to hear from the public if bumping back the time would be helpful for residents or if it would generally not be conducive with work schedules for those who’d like to attend.
A version of the resolution discussed at last week’s council meeting would have moved public comment on topics not related to items on the agenda to the end of the meeting – an action that would have made the majority of speakers at some meetings wait through hours of council business before speaking. This language is not included in the resolution being considered tonight.