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Assembly deadlocks 4-4 on allowing public comment at more meetings
- Mark Sabbatini
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Alicia Hughes-Skandijs, who was absent from meeting on Monday, says she is not certain how she would have voted
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
A proposal making public comment opportunities mandatory at Juneau Assembly committee meetings failed to make it to the introductory phase by a 4-4 vote Monday night — and a member who was absent says she doesn’t know if she would have cast the tiebreaking vote needed for it to pass.
Public testimony is currently allowed only at full Assembly meetings, unless the chair of an upcoming committee meeting decides ahead of time to allow comments. Nano Brooks, newly elected to the Assembly last October, offered the proposed change during a Committee of the Whole meeting Monday at City Hall.
"I feel like the community would really benefit and has a strong desire to be able to give public testimony at meetings like Finance and even Committee of the Whole," he told fellow Assembly members. "I know the reasoning why we don't currently do it, but my thoughts have always kind of been that when we're conceptualizing ideas and coming up with things, the community could very well have an idea that is far better than something that we come up with that we can work off of and kind of go from there."
Had his proposal been approved, it would have been introduced at a future Assembly meeting as a resolution altering the rules of procedure, which would have to pass a subsequent vote to take effect.
Municipal Clerk Breckan Hendricks told the Assembly she is not aware of another municipal government in Alaska with such a comment policy. Mayor Beth Weldon said she talked to seven other mayors and their councils don’t allow such testimony, except for one under limited circumstances.
A key concern of some Assembly members opposing Brooks’ proposed change is many committee meetings — such as those at midday or just before a regular Assembly meeting — are scheduled to be an hour long, so a public comment period might not allow enough time to deal with a full agenda.
"We might have a lunch meeting that's got four items on the agenda," Assembly Member Neil Steininger said. "Quickly you could overwhelm the entire committee meeting with public comment and not have any time for actual work to be done."
Brooks said his proposal envisions making at least 10 minutes at the start of meetings available for public testimony, but the chair or a majority of the committee could have discretion in altering that for a particularly busy agenda. He said if more people want to testify during a committee meeting than there is time for, committee members can "help direct them into another opportunity to where they can get those feelings and concerns out to us in the same kind of capacity."
"It's more so that the public can just have the assumption that we're always available and they can always come talk to us," he said.
Assembly Member Ella Adkison suggested people already have that opportunity, including at committee meetings when people can talk to members during breaks or after meetings.
"I know that's something we all do very frequently, and so I guess if someone shows up at (the Finance Committee) and wants to talk to the Assembly, how is it different to get their two minutes where we can't talk back and forth on testimony versus discussions after the committee?" she asked Brooks.
Brooks said a testimony period allows for people to offer input remotely as well as in-person, and puts those comments into an official record.
A concern expressed by Deputy Mayor Greg Smith is committees often are considering proposals at early stages, when information may be incomplete and items may not advance to a point there are getting serious consideration by the Assembly. He said that could result in a situation where "someone spends a bunch of time talking about a direction, or talking about a bunch of directions, that the Assembly or someone had really no intention of going."
Brooks said he has a more optimistic view of that possibility.
"If we have that involvement through all steps of the process it's getting refined along each step of the way, and therefore we can get a more solid idea in those earlier stages," he said. "So by the time that we go to finalize it at the full Assembly we have had already that really robust public participation aspect of it. They've helped us refine and hone the idea."
Christine Woll, the only Assembly member at the meeting elected to two terms who supported Brooks’ proposal, said "I'm a fan of experimenting and trying things."
"I'm willing to get less stuff done to help the public feel more engaged," said Woll, who has announced she isn’t seeking a third term this fall.
"I feel like what we're doing right now is probably the best way of balancing that," she added. "But I think that it's worth it to try different things and at least see what the public has to say about this."
Assembly Member Maureen Hall said she supports the change if testimony is limited to 10 minutes total and Assembly Member Paul Kelly said he supports it as a way to increase public engagement.
Steininger said, while he opposes the change proposed by Brooks, the idea of allowing public testimony at some committee meetings is worth considering.
"I think it would be better if we started to be a little more open to maybe occasionally adding it to some of our committees when we know that there's going to be public comment on an item," he said. "I think the default shouldn't be to turn it on, but the default should be that we should be a little more open to it."
Absent from Monday’s meeting was Alicia Hughes-Skandijs, who was on personal leave. In a text message to the Juneau Independent on Tuesday, she stated "it’s not 100% possible to know how I would have voted anyway without being in the meeting and hearing my colleagues."
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
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