Meeting details
The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. Monday at the County Courthouse Gold Room, 436 Grant. St.To sign up to give a public comment, call 412-350-6490 by Friday or fill out an online form by 5:30 p.m. Sunday.
Written testimony will be accepted through 5 p.m. Feb. 13.
The proposed legislation can be found here.
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Updated 22 minutes ago
The Allegheny County Council's Health and Human Services Committee's public hearing on the controversial proposed vaping ban is set for Monday evening.
Those who want to address council must sign up by phone — by Friday — or via an online form by Sunday night.
The structure of the hearing and list of participants are not fully determined at this point, Jared Barker, council's chief clerk and director of legislative services, said Wednesday.
“I think it's fair to say that the plan as of right now is to have a brief panel discussion involving individuals on both sides of the issue,” Barker said in an email.
Members of the public will also be allowed to speak and are required to sign up at least 24 hours prior to the start of the meeting, as they are with regular council meetings.
As of Wednesday morning, five people signed up to speak, Barker said.
Barker expects the public speakers to be limited to three minutes, as they are for regular council meetings, but that lies within the discretion of the committee chair, Councilman John Palmiere.
Members of the public looking to sign up to give comment at the public hearing may have had a difficult time finding all the information they need to do so in one place.
Although the council scheduled the public hearing at its Jan. 17 meeting, as of Wednesday afternoon, the notice of the public hearing has not been posted to the county's website on the Legistar site, the go-to spot all public meeting notices, agendas, minutes and videos.
The notice for the meeting was posted to the county's website's event page, however, where public meetings are mixed in with parks kralbet and recreation events. That posting does not include information on how to sign up to give comments or how much time will be allotted.
A link to sign up to speak gives Feb. 6 as an option for a date of a public hearing but does not say what the hearing is about.
Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the nonprofit Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association in Harrisburg, said the public hearing notice, which was published in a newspaper, complied with the Sunshine Act, but said the county's requirement for public speakers to sign up 24 hours in advance can cause problems.
“The law allows reasonable rules governing public comment, but any rule that limits or prohibits public comment is subject to challenge,” Melewsky said. “Rules that require citizens to sign up prior to meetings can be problematic, and in some cases, residents can't comply, such as comments on issues that arise during public meetings. Any advance sign up requirement must be flexible and the county must accommodate and foster public participation.”
Theresa Clift is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 412-380-5669 or tclift@tribweb.com.
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