After threats, Waynesville revises public comment policy
The Town of Waynesville will no longer require speakers at its public comment sessions to reveal their addresses, after a raucous July 25 meeting where some speakers voiced concern over identifying their residences due to violent threats made against the LGBTQ+ community that resulted from a man’s unfounded allegations of indecent behavior at the Waynesville Recreation Center on July 12.
“Following the meeting, Councilor Sutton asked that I present several different proposed revisions to the Town’s Rules of Procedure to accommodate the concerns of those individuals,” Town Attorney Martha Bradley wrote in an Aug. 2 memo to the mayor and Town Council.
“I wanted to make sure that everyone felt safe giving their views, no matter what those views are, and not having to worry about people showing up at their house or calling them,” Sutton told The Smoky Mountain News Aug. 12. “The political climate has changed so dramatically over the last six years I wanted to ensure everyone felt safe speaking. I understand some have felt uncomfortable in the past, but no one ever verbalized that to the [governing board], so once we were made aware, we acted.”
Bradley’s options were presented to council on Aug. 8.
Prior to the Aug. 8 meeting, public comment policy was clearly outlined in the town’s rules.
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Council must provide at least one opportunity for public comment each month. Waynesville’s town council meets twice a month, except for rare cancellations, and provides public comment sessions at every meeting.
The maximum length of time allotted to public comment sessions is limited to 30 minutes, although that can be extended by a majority vote.
Extension of public comment sessions has been traditionally been approved by council even when there are more speakers than time, including during the July 25 meeting, when Mayor Gary Caldwell said that everyone who wished to speak would be allowed to do so after the 30-minute limit had been reached.
In fact, not once in recent memory — under the administrations of both former Mayor Gavin Brown and Caldwell — has a public comment session been capped at 30 minutes, even when large groups of speakers have sometimes pushed public comment sessions over two hours.
Speakers are each allotted three minutes, although that can also be extended at the discretion of council.
While addressing town council, speakers may express concerns or opinions and share facts, data or other information that could help elected officials in their deliberation of any issue that falls under the town’s discretion. Speakers may not ask questions, make personal attacks or bring up topics not germane to agenda items or to town business.
Residency in the town, county, state our even the country is not a requirement to speak at public meetings, nor is being a registered voter. All speakers have to do to avail themselves of this right is submit “a fully completed written request card supplied by the Town to the Town Clerk.”
That request, however, would not be considered fully completed unless the speaker provided “their name, permanent residential address and telephone number, along with the general topic of their remarks,” per town policy. Also per town policy, the clerk “shall reject” requests deemed incomplete.
The options presented by Bradley zeroed in on the “permanent residential address and telephone number” stipulation, without proposing any other changes to the policy.
The first option would require only a name and general topic of the remarks on the request form, which would avoid creating a public record — legally available to anyone who asks for it — of the person’s address. Instead, speakers taking the podium would be required to state their name and whether their residential address is within town limits, within the town’s extra-territorial jurisdiction, within Haywood or outside of the county.
The second option would require a name and general topic of the remarks on the request form, as well as whether the speaker was eligible to register to vote in town elections. Similar to the first option, speakers at the podium would then declare their name and whether their residential address is within town limits, within the town’s extra-territorial jurisdiction, within Haywood County or outside of the county.
The third option left the address and phone number requirement in place but allows speakers to decline to provide them on the form. As with the first two options, speakers at the podium would still have to provide their name and whether their residential address is within town limits, within the town’s extra-territorial jurisdiction, within Haywood County or outside of the county.
Council members ultimately opted for a completely different option.
From now on, speakers will only have to present their name and whether they reside within the corporate limits of the town.
