Brentwood City Council Moves to 5-Minute Public Comments

On Tuesday, the Brentwood City Council unanimously agreed to move public comments to a 5-minute time limit. The mayor will still have the ability to reduce time limits based on number of speaker cards.

The item was brought to the council at the request of Mayor Joel Bryant as the city of Brentwood had moved public comment to 3-minutes, however, Bryant stated he wanted to be fair to the residents while also allowing staff to survey the rest of the county.

According to the staff report: The City Clerk staff conducted an e-mail survey of the other 18 cities in Contra Costa County and found the majority of cities have a 3 minute speaker time limit as shown on the following:

• Antioch – up to 3 minutes (at discretion of the Mayor)
• Brentwood – 5 minutes
• Clayton – 3 minutes
• Concord – 3 minutes (mayor has ability to shorten time to either one or two minutes)
• Danville – 3 minutes
• El Cerrito – 3 minutes
• Hercules – 3 minutes
• Lafayette – 3 minutes
• Martinez – 3 minutes
• Moraga – 3 minutes
• Oakley – 3 minutes
• Orinda – 3 minutes
• Pinole – 3 minutes
• Pittsburg – 3 minutes (mayor has ability to reduce time, depending on the amount of public comments)
• Pleasant Hill – 3 minutes
• Richmond – 2 minutes to address the council on non-public hearing items listed on the agenda. Speakers are allowed up to 3 minutes on public hearing items)
• San Pablo – 3 minutes
• San Ramon – the first 10 people to speak have 3 minutes to address the Council on matters not on the agenda. Any additional public comment is accommodated later in the meeting for 3 minutes each.
• Walnut Creek –2 minutes.

Public Comments

Antonio Xaivier spoke about how in the past Brentwood has had 5-minute public comments and it was reduced to 3-minutes. He said it was a good idea to keep the 5-minute public comment period and to continue to aspire to be Better in Brentwood with very involved public comments even though sometimes it could get messy, but stated silence is the worst thing for the democratic process.

“Keep the high standards in Brentwood,” stated Xaiver.

Carolina Villaseca suggested that when she speaks on items they get 1-minute to 5-minutes based on where she is speaking. She urged the council to consider the time based on the topic.

“The severity of the situation is what calls for the amount of time that a discussion needs to have,” said Villaseca. “its not as simple as yes 3-minutes, or yes 5-minutes…. its important to get information out and be as factual as possible.”

Council Discussion

Councilmember Jovita Mendoza stated she used to speak for 5-minutes and then it was moved to 3-minutes and did not recall being upset about it.

“I came in here thinking 3-minutes is fine, we have been doing fine with 3-minutes, then I am thinking yea, something complex like Bridle Gate was complex and we had to go through a lot of stuff. Now I am torn. I came in here thinking I was good with three minutes now I am thinking something is complex sometimes takes a speaker longer on something like land use,” explained Mendoza.

Councilmember Susannah Meyer stated she believed it was complicated to change the time depending on the topic was they didn’t know what would be important to people.

“I like the idea of a more complex agenda allowing for five-minutes,” said Meyer who asked if they could allow people to make the request.

Assistant city manager Darin Gale explained they could make whatever policy decision the council wanted to have. He urged the council to set one standard and follow that.

“Here is the thing, we just need to make sure its not a subjective standard, but an objective standard that we treat every person equally,” stated Gale. “Whenever somebody comes here, I believe they think its an important issue. It doesn’t matter if it’s a planning issue, if it’s a fence issue, if you start treating them differently, you will have residents who think you don’t think there issue is as important.”

He cited cities who have one standard of say 3-minutes and lower it based on number of speakers—perhaps with a 24-hour advance notice, a resident could request more time.

Mayor Joel Bryant said he was not “overly passionate” on either the 3-minutes or the 5-minute limit stating that even at 5-minutes individuals ran out of time.

“We have certain individuals in our community that are skilled at public speaking and we have a lot of individuals that are not. Someone who knows how to take advantage of their time can do that,” said Bryant. “Someone who cannot will begin to repeat themselves after about a minute and a half and sometimes feel like they have to take all of that time after they have made their point. So the fact we have opened it up to what I think is the best methodology of any city in our county is that we have the ability for all of our residents, whether they are in person or watch online and call in. I know cities have stopped that, I am thankful our council did not stop that and this is what we are working for which is accessibility to hear the voices of the people we serve.”

He was appreciative of that, but a lot of people who often are regular callers that make a point and do not use the 3-minutes, most use 2-minutes or less.

“As far as thinking 3-minutes for the vast majority of speakers is too little, I think history says it isn’t,” said Bryant. “There are certain situations where 5-minutes certainly isn’t enough time.”

He said its much easier with a large number of public speakers to reduce the time than to not have access to the 5-minutes.

“I personally don’t have a problem moving it to 5-minutes and can adjust that to accommodate a larger number,” said Bryant.

Councilmember Pa’tanisha Pierson asked if they could do the 3-minutes, but if a speaker requests the 5-minutes they could increase it on a council vote.

Byrant admitted he was thinking along the same lines but said it would be “impossible for the opinion not to be biased” regardless of what the item was because you are picking and choosing who would get more time and who would get less.

Mendoza suggested that they encourage people to use their 3-minutes but could go 5-minutes.

“I just watched myself from 3-years ago and there were times I was up there for a minute and a half. I think people should get up and say what they gotta say and sit down. I am fine with the 5-minutes. If we have a large room, then you adjust it to 3-minutes,” said Mendoza.

Councilmember Tony Oerlemans said he didn’t come to the meeting passionate about either 3-minutes or 5-minutes.

“I think giving everybody the opportunity to speak, giving them the 5-minutes if they truly want to use the 5-minutes. Allow them to use it. Encourage them if they don’t have much to say on the topic stick to the 3-minutes. It seems less subjective and seems more fair that way as opposed to changing the times,” stated Oerlemans.

According to City Clerk Margaret Wimberly, she said all commissions and committees follow the 3-minute public comments and follow the council.

Mayor Joel Bryant made the motion to amend the public comments to 5-minutes with the ability to reduce it based on the situation as number of public speakers.

Wimberly reminded the council that nothing changes and the policy would stay the same at five minutes. While Gale jumped in stating that staff would simply change the staff reports to include public comments at 5-minutes.  This change would also apply to committees and commissions

The motion was approved in a 5-0 vote.

April 21: Brentwood Set to Discuss Time Limits on Public Comments