Granite Shoals amends meeting decorum rules, public comments
The Granite Shoals City Council unanimously passed amendments to the city’s rules of conduct and decorum during the Dec. 12 regular meeting. The changes come after a year of deliberation and should have a major impact on how the public engages with government leaders during public meetings.
The two major changes are shortening the public comment period from six minutes to three minutes and moving all official public comments to the front of the meeting rather than spreading them throughout. There was also a clarification of how meetings are run, with more emphasis being put on the presiding officer’s ability to regulate who may speak and for how long.
These changes were most recently discussed during the Nov. 28 council meeting, during which members asked City Attorney Joshua Katz to draft the resolution that was ultimately approved on Dec. 12.
The city’s current rules of conduct and decorum and the newly approved amendments can be found here.
The changes address the prolonged back-and-forth interactions between the City Council and the public during meetings. According to Katz, public comment is not “an invitation to participate in the legislative function of the council.”
Mayor Ron Munos, who is in his third term as a member of the Granite Shoals council, expressed his view on the matter during the Nov. 28 meeting.
“I’ve been on council for five years, and in five years, I’ve had five mayors. All five mayors have always permitted people to talk during the meetings,” he said. “We value citizens’ comments, but I think we do need to tighten it down a little bit so we don’t go back and forth.”
The biggest change to public meetings is how they work. The city has traditionally allowed audience members to stand up and speak throughout the meetings and participate in the council’s deliberation on agenda items. Under these new rules, the public will have to sign up and make their comments during a specific agenda item at the beginning of the meeting.
In order to make further comments, outside of the public comment period, audience members will have to be officially recognized by the meeting’s presiding officer. In most cases, this will be the mayor or the mayor pro-tem in the mayor’s absence.
According to City Attorney Katz, these changes align with the Texas Open Meetings Act, which only requires that the public have the ability to comment. There is no requirement in state law for public comment to be allowed at any given time throughout the meeting.
“You, as a council, have the authority to (allow public comment at the beginning of the meeting or throughout the meeting),” he said. “The Open Meetings Act just says you have to allow the public to comment on any agenda item that they want.”