Editorial | Accommodation that’s reasonable
It took an Americans With Disabilities Act request for accommodation but Cape Coral City Council has moved its time for public comment back to the beginning of its meetings.
A Cape resident, who is a fully-disabled 81-year-old Vietnam veteran who recently lost his support dog, told the city that he cannot sit through the elected board’s sometimes hours-long sessions due to service-related health issues while waiting for the opportunity to speak.
He asked to be allowed his time at the podium at the beginning of the meeting where council, until last June, long scheduled Citizens Input.
After much discussion about options — and a tangent debate about moving voting meetings from its 4 p.m. start to 9 a.m. “like other elected bodies” — council moved Citizens Input directly after Recognitions and Achievements, usually about 10-15 minutes into the session and before deliberation of official business begins.
We thank council for the accommodation not only for the veteran making the request, but for all of the city’s residents who were not only kept waiting, but effectively stripped of their right to weigh in on how their tax dollars are spent.
Last June, almost a year to the day it had to consider how to comply with ADA mandates, council moved Citizens Input to the end of its voting meetings, placing it in front of Council Reports.
In doing so, the board specifically deleted a meeting provision that stated that “prior to council addressing items on the consent agenda, citizens may address council only on items listed on the consent agenda.”
The consent agenda is where the city places resolutions concerning expenditures and contracts, sometimes literally millions upon millions of dollars.
The consent agenda is passed as a whole without any council discussion unless a member of the board “pulls” an item for separate consideration.
By moving Citizens Input to the end of the meeting, and eliminating the right of the public to speak before council voted on its often voluminous consent agenda, taxpayers lost their right to address expenditures when comment — in theory, anyway — might have made a difference.
Let us share again the truism we espoused last June when council chose to put citizen input last: Public comment after a vote isn’t public comment — it’s public protest.
Moving Citizen Input to better accommodate the public — and reinstate this opportunity for input — was long overdue.
Breeze editorial