CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM
ACTION REQUESTED:
title
Approve the recommendation to: (1) extend the speaker sign-up deadline to 5 pm; (2) continue to allow the submission of written comments; and (3) include a call-in option as an alternative to online registration for speaker sign-ups
body
DEPARTMENT: City Manager's Office
SUBMITTED BY: Pam Gallahue, PhD, Deputy City Manager and Marcie Schatz, Assistant to the City Manager
BOARD/COMMISSION REVIEW:
N/A
BACKGROUND:
Public participation must comply with the Illinois Open Meetings Act (OMA) and the rules set forth for public participation in the Naperville Municipal Code.
The OMA mandates that agendas for public bodies must be posted at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting.
For decades, the City has exceeded the OMA requirement and posted City Council agendas a full six days before the meeting.
The OMA also holds that "any person shall be permitted an opportunity to address public officials under the rules established and recorded by the public body." As such, the City established rules that appropriately balance the opportunity for the public to address elected officials with the ability to conduct efficient open meetings.
Similar to agenda posting, the public participation rules provided in the City's Municipal Code have been in place for decades and, until November 2019, only allowed in-person speaker sign-up for City Council meetings from 6:30 pm - 6:55 pm the day of the meeting.
November 2019
In February 2017, the City began transitioning to a new agenda management system. As part of the transition, staff thoughtfully planned to discontinue in-person speaker sign-up and replace it with an electronic speaker sign-up option that would open six days prior to the meeting at the time the agenda was published.
Having an online speaker sign-up was seen as a convenience to participants that wanted to address the Council but could not, or did not want to, be at the Municipal Center between 6:30 pm and 6:55...
Click here for full text