Got something to say to Arroyo Grande City Council? You’d better talk fast | Opinion
It’s a longstanding tradition across California: If you want to give local officials a piece of your mind, you show up at a meeting, wait for public comment, then take your turn at the microphone, where you’re allotted three minutes to say just about whatever you want.
It’s almost always three minutes. Not two. Not four. Always three — except in the city of Arroyo Grande.
At its Aug. 13 meeting, the City Council voted to ditch the three-minute rule. From now on, each speaker gets just one minute.
“That’s plenty of time for someone to make their specific statement,” Councilman Jim Guthrie said.
If they need more time, they can follow up with a written statement, an email, or even a phone call to the city.
(The restriction applies only to the general comment portion of the meeting, when the public can talk about items not listed on the agenda. Speakers commenting on items on the agenda will still have three minutes.)
An era of incivility
The change was made in the interest of streamlining public meetings, but also to spare the audience from having to sit through the lengthy — and often offensive — diatribes some speakers inflict on attendees.
Last April, for instance, the Arroyo Grande City Council was bombarded with hate calls when it discussed whether to fly the Pride Flag at City Hall. Trolls took over the phone lines, ranting about hanging pedophiles, “getting rid” of Jews, providing reparations to white people and flying the Nazi flag.
That’s happened in many other places too, but because hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, officials are reluctant to shut speakers down, no matter how offensive they get.
Local governments can impose limits on public comment sessions, though, and as the tenor of comments has sunk lower and lower, many agencies have done so. The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors recently banned the use of the county’s audio-visual system during public comment after a group of speakers showed a sexually graphic video.
Many agencies no longer accept phone or Zoom calls. Others have moved the general comment session to the end of the meeting, when fewer people are present.
The city of Arroyo Grande didn’t want to go that route.
Mayor Caren Ray Russom was reluctant to cut off phone calls, since calling in is so convenient for locals who have a hard time attending meetings in person. And Guthrie didn’t like the idea of forcing members of the public to wait until the end of the meeting to speak.
The one-minute rule was a sort of compromise.
‘You try to trample all over the constitutional rights of the citizens’
Predictably, not everyone liked that decision.
“While allowing public comment for three minutes is not a requirement, it is customary and appreciated. It’s just three minutes of one’s life; less time than it takes to microwave popcorn or watch a TikTok video,” Julie Tacker, a Los Osos resident who monitors local government meetings throughout the county, wrote in a letter to the editor.
Tacker is alleging the City Council violated the Brown Act when it decided to cut speaking time to a minute, since that was not specifically listed on the agenda. (The city took the action while discussing an update of the City Council Handbook, which covers rules for public comment. That was listed on the agenda.)
The council is scheduled to discuss the allegation during a closed session before its Aug. 27 meeting, and Tacker is urging the public to show up at the meeting and comment on the issue.
“They’ll get three minutes because it’s ON the agenda,” she wrote.
Gaea Powell, a candidate for mayor of Arroyo Grande, also had harsh words for the council.
“It’s amazing to me that any opportunity you get, you try to trample all over the constitutional rights of the citizens,” Powell told the council. “If you limited me to one minute, then maybe I could get 15 people to speak 15 minutes, so maybe you should just honor the Constitution.”
Earlier in the meeting, Powell used her three minutes of general comment time to, among other things, complain about inappropriate material available at the high school library — something the City Council has absolutely zero control over.
Therein lies the problem. Public comment has become a soapbox for people who want to promote their personal causes, even if it’s totally outside an agency’s jurisdiction.
It’s also a venue for liars, conspiracy theorists and bigots whose only goal is to shock and disrupt.
It’s understandable that public agencies would want to put new limits in place in an effort to tone down the rhetoric, but they should not become so restrictive that they punish members of the public who have legitimate contributions to make.
Speaking of which, one minute does seem a little stingy.
Two minutes, or even 90 seconds, would be more reasonable.
Arroyo Grande officials do seem willing to reconsider.
“If we find that a minute is not enough, then we’ll change to two minutes, or go back to three,” the mayor said.
This column had been updated with information about Julie Tacker’s allegation of a Brown Act violation.
This story was originally published August 23, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
