Raleigh City Council Changes How It Receives Public Comments

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Good morning, readers.

At the Raleigh City Council’s annual retreat this year, several city leaders brought up a topic that had been on their minds since they were on the campaign trail: how the city receives public comments. 

“I felt a lot of anger from the citizens, that they felt like they had been shut out of city hall, that they were no longer going to sit through hours of public comment, that some of the material being shown was so graphic that they didn’t want to bring their children into the chamber,” said Mayor Janet Cowell at the retreat. 

City staff identified ways to modify the public comment process and yesterday the council took the first steps to improve it by voting to eliminate the broadcasting of visual media—slides, images, video—during the public comment sessions and to adopt ways to clarify the purpose of public comments. 

But the council is also looking for ways to shorten its monthly public comment session that currently begins at 7 p.m. and lasts for three hours. Options include starting later or curtailing the session by an hour or two. 

“We’re not really in a position to weigh in or make decisions about certain issues that folks want to bring and present to us and I think we ended up seeing a lot of folks come because we did have so much time [for public comments],” said Mayor Pro Tem Stormie Forte at yesterday’s meeting. “So limiting the amount of time and bringing us into alignment with other communities would be better for folks who’ve got pertinent issues they want to raise or we could actually take action on or do something about.”

The council couldn’t find consensus on how to shorten the public comment session yesterday, and some council members want to hear from the public before modifying public comments further.

Read about the changes the council made yesterday. Have a good Wednesday.

—Jane

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