Gone are the restrictive rules governing public comments. Commissioners are drafting a new set to protect free speech.
By LISA GREENE
Published May 31, 2003
Pinellas County commissioners laid out ideas this week for new rules governing public comments at their meetings.
The rule that people can speak only once on a particular topic in 30 days? Gone.
Rules limiting the ability to be "irrelevant, impertinent, or slanderous?" Also gone.
"We're not defining impertinent slanderous anything," said Karen Seel, County Commission chairwoman.
The chair will still be able to tell speakers if they are out of order, Seel said. But, she said, even though the commission had no written policy in the past, the chair has always been able to do that.
Commissioners backed off a short-lived, more restrictive policy last week, soon after one of their most vocal critics ran afoul of the new rules and was arrested just outside the commission assembly room.
First Amendment advocates criticized the rules as restricting free speech. Last week, commissioners agreed. Prompted by Commissioner Bob Stewart, commissioners agreed to drop the rules and start over.
Stewart, who originally signed off on the policy, said that he and five of his colleagues had overreacted in response to their frustration that the one critic, John Schestag, was returning to each meeting with broad accusations about county officials.
Commissioners have yet to formally adopt new rules. But this week, they asked staff members to draft rules that will allow people to speak for three minutes at the beginning of each meeting, as they have in the past.
Commissioners discussed one measure that would give speakers less time. Under the current rules for public hearings, people speaking about an item on the agenda can speak for 20 minutes if they represent a group of five people or more.
Commissioners informally agreed to change that time limit to five minutes.
