After three months of elongated meetings — with dozens of residents speaking primarily about a proposed Israel-Hamas war cease-fire resolution — the Waukegan City Council has modified its rules governing audience time.
Mayor Ann Taylor said accommodations needed to be made for those awaiting a vote on a matter they brought to the council.
“I heard from some of the aldermen we had to change the rules so we could get to the business of the city,” Taylor said after the meeting. “People with business before the council need to be heard.”
The council voted 8-1 Monday at City Hall to allow no more than 45 minutes of public comments near the start of meetings, but allowed that additional public remarks will be heard after all other business is complete.
Starting with the Aug. 19 meeting, the measure provides the third heading on the agenda — audience time set aside for public comments — will be limited to 45 minutes. As before, each individual will be able to speak for no more than three minutes.
Should the 45-minute limit be reached before everyone who has registered to speak has been heard, Stewart Weiss, an attorney with corporation counsel Elrod Friedman, said the mayor can extend audience time or move the remaining speakers to the end of the meeting.
Weiss said though the presiding officer, usually the mayor, makes the decision, a majority vote of the council can reverse that choice. He laid out the rules during a meeting of the Government Operations & Oversight Committee earlier in the day.
“The rules are a little bit old now,” Weiss said at the committee meeting. “They don’t reflect the full body of law that has been established under Illinois statutes, and also under opinions of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office through their public access counselor.”
Along with the time allocated for public comments and the length of time each person can talk, he said the legislation contains rules of decorum and broad limits about what can be discussed. Comments must be germane to the purview of the council.
“The City Council has a pretty broad purview,” Weiss said during the committee meeting. “Of topics it can consider, it covers a lot of ground — public welfare, public safety, development — so it’s is a pretty broad standard.”
Anyone making public comments must address them to the council and not the audience, according to the rules. Speech which is “imminently threatening, incites violence or is obscene” is prohibited, as is disorderly conduct. The presiding officer enforces the rules.
Before the vote, Ald. Jose A. Guzman, 2nd Ward, said there should be no limit on public comments at meetings. He said individuals should have no time limit since they are the taxpayers who, “literally keep the lights on.” He cast the lone no vote.
“To restrict a time limit for public comment I think is totally inappropriate,” Guzman said. “They pay their tax dollars; they pay their sales tax; they pay their fuel tax; they pay tax, after tax, after tax, after tax. To limit their time is totally inappropriate.”
Ald. Keith Turner, 6th Ward, suggested when a number of people are advocating for the same thing, a spokesperson or multiple spokespeople could be designated to speak for the group. Ald. Thomas Hayes, 9th Ward, expressed concerns over that idea.
“That’s going to create even more issues,” Hayes said. “It’s not like we have a crystal ball and can figure out what people are going to say before they say it. It is just going to get us into more trouble. It’s a minefield.”
Starting on May 5, as a group of people advocated during public comment for the council to pass a cease-fire resolution seeking a halt in the Israel-Hamas war, audience time grew with each meeting. A resolution was ultimately introduced on July 15 and defeated 4-3.
Alteration of audience time at the July 15 meeting — in part because of approaching storms — caused demonstrations both inside the council chambers and outside the building for more than an hour.
Though only two members of the public asked the council to reconsider a cease-fire resolution Monday, more than a dozen held up signs which read, “Cease fire resolution now!!!.”