On Tuesday, for the first time under this Boulder City Council, open comment from members of the public was not allowed to run on endlessly.
Boulder council members instead decided ahead of their weekly meeting to cap open comment — which is taken at the beginning of meetings and invites commentary from anyone on any topic not already slated for a public hearing the same night — to 45 minutes.
That’s about a 30 percent reduction from the amount of time the council spends taking open comment every week, according to the city attorney’s office.
The cap installed Tuesday represents one of the council’s first steps toward shortening its meetings, which have often run past midnight. From now on, the council vowed at its annual retreat in January, no meeting will end after 11 p.m., and no study session will end after 10 p.m.
Though limiting open comment has not been the practice of this council, a 45-minute cap is actually written into the council’s rules of order, as is the requirement to adjourn by 11 p.m.
“We are going back to enforcing our rules that have actually been in place for a long time, but that we have routinely ignored,” Mayor Suzanne Jones told the audience at the start of the meeting.
Ironically, the open comment period on Tuesday was the first in months that did not feature more than 45 minutes worth of speakers, so no one was turned away.
Only one of the 22 people who addressed the council voiced any concerns with the limit.
Starting as soon as Feb. 21, according to a city spokeswoman, the council will operate under a different policy for limiting open comment.
That policy, drawn up by the council Feb. 1, involves no more than 20 speakers per meeting. The speakers will be chosen by lottery, the council decided.
The council has vowed to make up for the limitations on open comment by soliciting more citizen feedback through other mediums, such as email and town halls, though no formal plans for those changes have been announced.
Alex Burness: 303-473-1389, burnessa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/alex_burness
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