Englewood City Council voted to update its public comment ordinance in a special meeting, ahead of more potential changes.
In a 4-1 vote council approved several amendments to the city’s public comment policy to reflect current practices. At-large Council member Kim Wright voted nay and At-Large Council member Rita Russell wasn’t present at the meeting.
“We aligned our municipal code to reflect current practices such as removing limitations on who could speak,” Mayor and District 1 Councilmember Othoniel Sierra said. “For example, our code was reflecting ‘taxpayers or residents of the city…may address council’ when we don’t limit who can address council during public comment.”
These amendments come about a week before the council is set to discuss and vote on additional changes it plans to make to the public comment process at the April 15 meeting.
Sierra said those proposed changes, which were discussed in a March 11 study session, include eliminating online comment, limiting public comment to three minutes per speaker for an hour total, providing priority for speakers who haven’t addressed council in the last 90 days, and more clarity on audio and video presentations from the public.
“We are looking to bring our public comment policies in line with what other cities in the metro area and the state are doing,” Sierra said. “Englewood currently has some of the more lenient rules around public comment and want to still continue to provide that forum for our constituents and members of the public while making sure we’re still able to get to the business of the city in a timely fashion during council meeting evenings.”
Castle Rock’s town council removed the option for remote public comment in February, citing anonymous anti-semitic attacks on public meetings in Wheat Ridge and Lakewood through online comments.
Sierra said the ordinance aligning the code with current practices from April 8 will go into effect 30 days from publication after passing the second reading.
“On public comment policies, if council changes are made to these public comment policies by motion on April 15, those would go into effect immediately,” Sierra said.
Amendments approved on April 8 include:
- Eliminating restrictions on who may provide written or spoken public comment, so that it can be provided by “any person,” rather than only taxpayers, residents, or interested parties
- Allowing preference to be given to speakers in the order they sign up and to speakers who haven’t addressed the council in 90 days
- Allowing the council to limit the length of public comment
- Eliminating content regulation by removing a requirement that public comment cannot be directed to a specific council member and removing the prohibition on asking a council member a question