Public Comment listed on Agenda

[Guest Denise]

In a local government for meetings of one of the municipality's commissions, the agenda lists the following:

Compliance of OPMA

Roll Call

Approval of minutes; resolutions; ordinances

Public Comment

General business

Adjournment

My question is if a comment by a member of the public relates directly to the issue being Approved, how can the governing body consider that comment as they make their decisions if the public comment does not take place until after a vote is taken?

Thank you for your help.

 

[Joshua Katz]

Clearly, they can't. But they can move to amend the agenda to move public comment earlier, or they can move to suspend the rules and hear from a member of the public during debate on that item. They can also, if they find the public comment persuasive, move to reconsider the decision.

Note that all of the above assumes the rules in RONR apply. But as a public body, they are almost certainly subject to laws that may make these harder to do.

[Guest Puzzling]

11 hours ago, Guest Denise said:

In a local government for meetings of one of the municipality's commissions, the agenda lists the following:

Compliance of OPMA

Roll Call

Approval of minutes; resolutions; ordinances

Public Comment

General business

Adjournment

My question is if a comment by a member of the public relates directly to the issue being Approved, how can the governing body consider that comment as they make their decisions if the public comment does not take place until after a vote is taken?

Thank you for your help.

 

Not sure what OPMA means

Then I think maybe 

Approval of minutes; resolutions; ordinances means 

Approval of the minutes

Receiving of resolutions, and ordinances (of the city council or other higher authorities)

This way it would make sense (although where is the approval of the agenda and so on?)

The committee is probably more ruled by city ordinances than by RONR

[Rob Elsman]

17 hours ago, Guest Denise said:

if a comment by a member of the public relates directly to the issue being Approved, how can the governing body consider that comment as they make their decisions if the public comment does not take place until after a vote is taken?

Obviously, it couldn't without suspending the rules.

[Richard Brown]

OK, here’s my take, based on following lots of open meetings and open meetings laws of various states.

First, 0PMA, in my opinion, probably stands for either Ohio, Oklahoma, or Oregon Public Meetings Act. 

Second, the public comment portion of the meeting is probably that portion of the meeting, usually at the end of the meeting, were members of the public can comment on various matters which may or may not have been on the agenda. That is when members of the public can raise issues of concern that were not on the agenda.

Third, although this will vary from state to state, the public meetings law probably provides that Citizens may also comment on various ordinances and resolutions, particularly those ordinances which by law must be subject to a public hearing, at the time those matters are taken up on the agenda. I do not necessarily interpret the very brief statement by the OP. as meaning the only time Citizens ever get to speak is at the end of the meeting after business has been concluded.

it will be helpful if Guest Denise will give us a little more information. I also imagine that if she looks further into the 0PMA, which is probably her state’s open meetings law, she may well find her answers there.