Editorial | Mincing words
Cape Coral City Council cut the number of ways the public can comment at its meetings Wednesday by amending its Council Agenda Rules of Procedure.
The change to the policy — which eliminates citizen petitions to Council — came with no previous public discussion at a workshop or meeting and was originally tucked into the consent agenda where all items are passed together unless pulled by a council member for some dialogue on the dais.
The item was pulled because some members of the “new council” had questions as to why language pertaining to the process for citizen petitions was being deleted and why petitions to Council were being excised from the four opportunities the public was afforded for citizen participation at council meetings.
The city attorney, Aleksandr Boksner, told the board the change was essentially to clear up a conflict with provisions in the city’s charter which provides a process for petitions to Council.
The changes passed without dissent.
With all due respect to Mr. Boksner, his response was, at best, overly simplistic.
At worst, it was disingenuous.
At the meeting’s end, he was asked for the charter provision to which he referred.
He cited Article IX, which pertains to initiatives and referendums.
Specifically citizen initiatives and referendums, which require a mandated process of their own.
Article IX provides registered voters with the right to propose ordinances and referendums and outlines the steps they must take: Any five qualified voters may commence the process by filing an affidavit with the City Clerk’s Office stating that they will circulate a petition and gather the signatures for their citizen initiative which, if all of the outlined requirements are met and deemed sufficient, will appear on the ballot for city voters to decide.
It’s the power run of citizen input, a collective push back on legislative bodies that the public perceives as ignoring public demand for substantive change.
The policy provisions in Council’s rules of procedure that were eliminated Wednesday night?
They provided that a citizen — singular — could submit a written request to council through the mayor’s office that they would like to address the elected board on a specific subject. The requester would be limited to that subject and be allowed a maximum of 10 minutes to present their “petition.”
The word “petition” being the only apparent conflict, at least to a layman, between the charter and the seldom-used policy provision that simply allowed a resident to get a place on the city agenda.
The policy changes also included a tweak to the language under the Public Comment Opportunities component.
“Citizens are given several opportunities to be heard concerning matters scheduled on the Council Agenda, and on any other matters of interest or concern to them” has now become “on any other matters pertinent to the city.”
With Council, as indicated Wednesday night, to determine whether the topic is pertinent or not.
A couple of things.
One, the “conflict” between the charter and the Council Agenda Rules of Procedure could have been simply modified to preserve the right of “petition” directly to Council on issues that might require more that the three minutes allowed during public comment. Language could have been added that said petitions not pertain to initiatives and referendums. Or the word “petition” could have been changed to something like “appeal.”
Two, if Council wanted to dot legal Is and cross legal Ts, it would have been better to have addressed the specious provisions related to citizen ouster and the legally actionable provisions that impose bans and require residents to jump through hoops to be allowed to attend meetings they are, by law, allowed to attend.
Let us point out that the city paid $100,000 to a resident bounced from a meeting and then arrested after he tried to attend a subsequent meeting.
The city’s post-litigation modifications remain open to challenge and one would think a prior restraint lawsuit is not something the city wants to defend.
Again.
We urge Council to take another look at its rules of procedure.
We see little improvement, and still work — much work — to be done on behalf of Cape Coral’s residents here.
Breeze editorial