Members of the public who sign up to speak at City Council meetings no longer will have their addresses automatically disclosed following a unanimous council vote Wednesday, but that personal information still will be discoverable through a public records request.
Houston long has required speakers to disclose their names, phone numbers and home addresses to participate during City Council’s public comment session. That information then was printed on a speaker sheet available at the start of the meeting.
This week, four City Council members proposed ending the practice after weeks of speakers, many of whom spoke against Houston’s continued investments in Israel, who said the disclosure put them at risk of harassment.
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District K Councilmember Martha Castex-Tatum, one of the sponsors, said the proposal was not about any one group or issue in particular.
“There may be people who will not want to come to speak at public session because they don’t want to give their phone number and address,” Castex-Tatum said after Wednesday’s council meeting.
“I think that it’s also about protecting people’s privacy. We’ll use that information on a need-to-know basis, and people that don’t have a need to know it, they shouldn’t have easy access to it.”
City employees sometimes use that information to reach out to members of the public in efforts to address their concerns.
District J Councilmember Edward Pollard, District F’s Tiffany Thomas and District D’s Carolyn Evans-Shabazz also sponsored the proposal.
The speaker list distributed at the beginning of Wednesday’s meeting did not include residents’ addresses or phone numbers. Castex-Tatum said the council anticipated the measure passing, so it made sense to start “as soon as possible.” The information is still recorded internally in order for the city to follow-up with speakers as necessary.
The information will not be entirely private, however, and will remain available through public records requests, according to the city secretary’s office.
Houston for Palestinian Liberation has protested the requirement for months and celebrated the change on Instagram.
“(Mayor John Whitmire) has been looking for new ways to intimidate folks,” the group said in a post, referencing Whitmire’s former proposal to ban protests within 200 feet of homes. “…He keeps failing because there’s no power like the power of the people.”
The city’s practice of including the information on the printed list of speakers had been in place for decades.
Whitmire voted for the measure Wednesday.
Other Texas cities have varying policies on the public disclosure of speaker information.
Dallas requires a speaker to provide their name, address and telephone number when registering to speak, and state their name and address in front of the council.
Neither San Antonio or Fort Worth require speakers to provide an address. Fort Worth does ask for a speaker’s phone number to contact the person if a meeting is canceled.
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