Local Government Commissioners Attempt to Corral Citizens' Comments

BRADENTON — For the past couple of years, Manatee County Commissioners have struggled with a public audience that hasn't always been forgiving. At Tuesday's BOCC Workshop, board members and staff heard a form of remedy to the disruption some commissioners claim have taken over the citizens comments portion of meetings. County Attorney Micky Palmer presented three possible solutions.

Solution one: continue to enforce the current ordinance; that is, three minutes to speak, per item, with no collective time limit.

Solution two: three minutes to speak, per item, but with a collective time limited to ten minutes.

Solution three: a total time to speak limited to three minutes, regardless to the number of items being addressed, and a requirement that citizens' comments at work sessions be limited to items on the agenda.

The only commissioners who suggested solution three were Commissioners Baugh and Smith. Smith said he could vote for three, and Baugh said she was concerned with "consistency" with other counties.

DiSabatino was adamantly against any restrictions to citizens' rights to speak, in the interest of equal time, and Whitmore shared her position. 

The words civil rights couldn't stay out of the conversation and the flipped notion, anyone entertaining a form of 'filibuster' would be denying other citizen's rights as well. 

Commissioners sparred with contradictions until they basically migrated back to solution one: The same old, same old, with a lot of complaints about how mean and selfish the public is at times.

Attorney Palmer will return with another swing at new citizen comment rules at a future meeting.