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Frisco City Council is considering changing the rules for public input at council meetings.
City Council met to discuss possible amendments to the city’s ordinance regarding public testimony at a Feb. 17 work session.
City officials said the move comes after a Feb. 3 meeting where 23 people, including several who were not Frisco residents, spoke about perceived demographic changes in Frisco during the public comment period.
The specifics
Under the current policy, people who want to speak during citizen input can submit a speaker card at any point during the meeting.
They can speak for up to five minutes, or up to three minutes if 10 or more people want to speak on the same agenda item.
City Council discussed a number of ideas for changes to the public comment policy, including:
Council members also discussed moving the lectern to avoid having audience members visible on the livestream video.
On the other hand
Council member Burt Thakur, who received several comments directed at him during the Feb. 3 meeting, expressed concerns about taking action to restrict public comment.
“I think that the First Amendment is sacrosanct—and while I am the recipient of some of the invectives that have been hurled—I do think that there’s a very slippery slope the moment a governmental body shuts down someone’s right to speak, even if it’s odious, even if it’s something I think is absolutely morally reprehensible,” Thakur said.
Council members ultimately decided to focus any new rules on the procedures regarding public comment, not the content of what speakers are saying.
The framework
Frisco City Council is subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act, a 2019 law which sets rules for how government bodies make decisions and communicate with their residents.
According to the law, City Council must publish an agenda for each meeting and set aside time for members of the public to speak about issues on that agenda.
City Council goes beyond that requirement and allows people to speak on any issue during the public comment period, including items that are not on the agenda.
Council members considered eliminating public comment on nonagenda items entirely but didn’t want to negatively impact citizens with relevant concerns.
“A nonagenda item could be a city-related issue,” Mayor Jeff Cheney said. “It could be, ‘I know it’s not on the agenda, but I still don’t want you to build the dog park next to my neighborhood, and I’m going to come every meeting and tell you that.’”
The backstory
This is not the first time City Council has considered changing its rules regarding public comment.
City attorney Richard Abernathy said council members previously asked him to review their options for changing the public comment policy “when there was an issue about the Palestinians.”
“Particularly young people came every meeting asking that [City Council] pass a resolution,” he said. “We came back with a bunch of suggestions. It was decided not to do anything at that time because [City Council] didn’t think it was the right time.”
Cheney said City Council has opted against changing the public comment policy in the past because council members assumed the situation would eventually pass.
Now, council members are reconsidering rule changes because they believe what occurred at the Feb. 3 meeting may not be a one-time issue.
“It has always been where agitators have moved along, and so then three or four months go by, we have normal citizen input, and then we just kind of forget about it,” Cheney said. “But it’s becoming increasingly likely that this is not going away.”
Next steps
Council members directed the city attorneys to compile a list of ways to control the time and manner of speakers during public comment for review during a future work session.
Any changes to the city ordinance will be voted on by the full City Council at a regular meeting before being adopted and implemented.
