Speaking up at city council meetings had created tangible change for Missouri City residents like Bob David.
In March, he and his neighbors appeared before council to oppose a hotel development that would take up 17 acres of land near their homes. Their list of concerns were long: the potential threat to wildlife, impact on drainage and potential traffic congestion were just a few.
After several meetings of the group expressing their opposition, the developer pulled their zoning request – a win for the neighborhood, David said.
But in a recent move by council to make meetings more “efficient,” council has voted to eliminate public comment on non-agenda items, a move some residents feel is an attempt to stifle their voices.
“In their mind, they’re saying that by reducing or taking off the non-agenda speaking time, it’s going to make their meetings more efficient. But at the end of the day, they’re there because the public hired them to be there,” David said. “And if they’re removing what a public citizen wants to say whether it’s on the agenda or not, that’s removing a citizen’s right and ability to be heard.”
In an attempt to reverse this decision, residents have created a petition to reinstate public comments on non-agenda items.
“It reduces their accountability to public comments, and reduces the public’s ability to actually collaborate with each other and hear about issues that the public thinks is important during these city council meetings,” resident Dinishi Abayarathna said.
A courtesy to the public?
The decision by Missouri City Council to eliminate public comment on non-agenda items came not only as a surprise to residents, but also to Councilmember Jeffery L. Boney.
In July, council had a second reading of an ordinance that proposed cutting time dedicated to public comments on non-agenda items in half. Instead, Councilmember Sonya Brown-Marshall proposed following state law and eliminating the time for non-agenda items all together.
“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should,” Boney said of the decision. “I would never want to silence the voice of our residents and our stakeholders.”
This vote, which passed 4-2, made Missouri City the second major city in Fort Bend County to eliminate public comment on non-agenda items. Sugar Land has not allowed public comment on non-agenda items for more than 20 years, city spokesman Doug Adolph said.
This effort was the latest in a series to make council meetings more efficient since City Council meetings were already running long, Boney said. Sometimes, meetings ran past midnight.
In the past, council had taken action such as pushing up council meetings by 30 minutes or moving some agenda items to other various city meetings.
“This is not our full-time job,” he said. “… You could find yourself having your quality of life being impacted and possibly not as effective as you want to be because you’re drained.”
While he was in favor of reducing the time for public comment on non-agenda items, he was not at all in favor of eliminating them completely. Even though public comments aren’t required by law, some people come with valuable information, he said.
“I want to hear from our residents. I want to hear from our stakeholders,” he said. “And yes, while we may be accessible by way of email, there are things that I don’t hear and I don’t get and I don’t see, if not for some of those people coming before Council.”
Boney reiterated that the purpose of city council meetings is to conduct city business.
“We have contracts to vote on resolutions, ordinances — things that allow us to maintain and move the city forward,” he said. “The allowance of public comments prior to my arrival on city council and even since is really a courtesy to the public.”
Open government lawyer Joe Larsen said that local governments should seek input from the community on how their decisions or lack thereof are impacting them.
“Are they just being nice to the people who voted them into office by allowing them to express concerns they have about how the community is being run?” he said. “That doesn’t ring true to me. It’s just a courtesy. It’s like, well, who’s in charge here? Is it the people? Is this really a government of the people, by the people, for the people, or is this allowing public participation just a courtesy?”
Threat to transparency and accountability?
Toward the end of the July 1 meeting, Brown-Marshall said it was a difficult decision to make, but not all residents approach council with accurate information. And state law does not allow council members to respond to residents during public comment.
“It was really hard to make such a motion,” she said. “But we just don’t have a way to defend ourselves.”
Brown-Marshall and fellow councilmembers assured the public that they are easily accessible to them.
“We are not as the narrative says ‘trying to silence.’ We are definitely not doing that,” Mayor Pro-Tem Lynn Clouser said. “I believe that all of my colleagues are accessible. And when you email us, when you call us, we reply.”
While this decision by Missouri City is legal, it can create transparency issues, Larsen said. Although councilmembers may be available to chat outside of city council meetings, there is something to be said about residents speaking in a public forum as opposed to private conversations, Larsen said.
“The comments that are being made are being heard by everybody,” he said. “If transparency is just between a few, then that’s not really transparency.”
Abayarathna, who’s been a vocal resident during city council meetings, said that even as a person council is familiar with, she has a pretty low response rate to her emails.
“My big thing is that they’re taking out the public forum of it,” she said. “They’re trying to put these conversations in private, which means no accountability, or very little to no accountability. And that’s really disappointing, because they don’t have to answer emails, they don’t have to do any of those things.”
The Houston Landing reached out to all seven city council members to request an interview. Councilmembers Boney, Monica Riley and Floyd Emery responded, but only Boney was able to be reached for an interview.
When asked if he’d consider putting the issue of speaking time for non-agenda items back on the agenda, Boney said it depends. When council was considering this ordinance, he said few community members spoke against striking public comments.
“I wouldn’t want to put something on an agenda that’s going to kind of fail, you know, kind of be dead on arrival, right?” he said. “I don’t think that that is a prudent decision. I would have liked to have had those residents that had these concerns to have shown up for the meeting to express themselves.”
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