LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock city directors set aside 30 minutes every other week to listen to concerns and complaints from residents - including some who have come to board meetings for years to talk about missed trash pickups, bus service needs and, more recently, the sales-tax election.
Mayor Mark Stodola and city directors are contemplating tweaking the forum they call “Citizen’s Communications.”
Suggestions from City Hall include no longer allowing hand-held signs in the boardroom or electronic presentations by residents out of fear that removable memory cards containing the information could infect city computers with a virus.
Stodola said he has no issue with the 30-minute time frame, but he would like to see limits on the number of times a person can raise the same issue. For example, one resident talked about the lack of bus service on John Barrow Road at nearly every meeting over the past year, asking Little Rock to direct Central Arkansas Transit Authority to add a route.
“There’s absolutely no need to bring that to our attention every meeting,” the mayor said. “I think there’s been some abuse of that forum.”
At-large City Director Joan Adcock feels the same way.
“When we’re working on it, in one week we may not have the answer to it,” she said.
The city’s policies on Citizen’s Communications have been tweaked throughout the years.
In 1990, residents had 15 minutes to share their thoughts. That changed in 1992 to 30 minutes, with speakers each being allotted three minutes.
In 1995, the board alternated when it heard from residents, deciding to have the forum at the start of their first meeting of the month and then at the end of their second monthly meeting. Since then, the forum has wound up at the end of each meeting, some of which last three or four hours.
Some Little Rock residents are calling for the 30-minute communication session to be returned to the start of board meetings.
“Little Rock city government should be friendly to constituents,” said Neil Sealy with the Little Rock-based group Arkansas Community Organizations. “And city directors are paid to be there, as is the mayor and the city staff. But the folks who come and address the city board, unless they are a paid lobbyist, by and large they are 95 percent volunteer and they take time away from their family and home and they’ve worked all day. We just feel it would be a courtesy to put citizens toward the beginning of the meeting.”
Members of the organization, previously known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, have circulated a petition calling on the city to change the time and to require all board members to be present.
“The concerns of citizens should be taken seriously,” a letter with the petition said.
Luke Skrable, who has spoken at dozens of meetings since 2006, is concerned about the city’s desire to alter the forum.
In the past year, he has brought numerous electronic documents to show the board. He’s showed them pictures of trash and debris in his neighborhood and even city statistics on the number of yard-parking complaints and citations.
“That’s free speech, too,” he said.
Skrable, whose heated tone at meetings has led a few times to his removal, has met with various city officials over the years but keeps returning to the podium.
He also questions why the city would consider banning hand-held signs, which people have had in the past to silently protest an issue to the board or to display to the video cameras that sometimes show the audience during board meetings. As for limiting how many times a person can speak on a subject, Skrable said, “I’m going to keep coming up there regardless of the rules. If it ain’t done, I keep coming back until it’s done.”
“I’m the guy paying for everything. I don’t want to be treated this way,” said Skrable, a southwest Little Rock resident.
While it’s common for cities to put some sort of limitation on speaking to city officials at meetings, most city policies only address the amount of time allotted to each person.
North Little Rock limits residents to three minutes each and Fort Smith’s city code allows two minutes per person. Pine Bluff has altered its city code to place speakers at the end of the meetings.
The three minutes allotted to individuals can be reduced if there are multiple speakers, according to Pine Bluff’s code. That code also lays out what is considered disorderly conduct, saying a person could be arrested or cited if he uses “obscene or abusive language or make obscene gestures under conditions likely to provide a violent or disorderly response from persons at the meeting ...”
Little Rock does not have anything similar in its city code, and it’s not known whether anyone has ever been arrested because of disorderly conduct at a city board meeting.
Fayetteville City Council agendas only refer to speaking on an agenda item, and residents aren’t limited to a specific time. However, the City Council earlier this month approved prohibiting residents from making electronic presentations on agenda items out of concern for time.
Little Rock’s policy printed on agendas refers to three minutes per subject, although speakers frequently run over and the board sometimes takes comments for more than 30 minutes. Along with banning signs and electronic presentations, a memorandum from City Attorney Tom Carpenter has suggested adding language about decorum.
“Any person making personal attacks, impertinent remarks, using profanity, or other similar remarks, will be declared out of order, may lose the privilege to address the board, and in egregious cases may be removed from the meeting,” the suggestion reads.
Skrable said his days at the podium might be over if the city adopts any changes.
“I will live at the curb with a poster in my hand,” he said, explaining he would protest outside City Hall instead. “If this goes through, there’s going to be no reason to come up there because they’re going to paint you into a corner to where you can only say ‘good evening board.’ What’s pertinent? What’s personal? If I say a board of director’s name, is that personal ?”
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 11/13/2011