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The countdown clock on the left gives public speakers yellow and red lights as their three-minute time expires during their hurried comments to Renton City Council. The clock on the right records the time of day (and official meeting length). Weekly council meetings have been averaging just 44 minutes, so Council should consider allowing five-minute public comments again.
During the 28 years I was on Renton City Council, we gave members of the public who attended our meetings at least five minutes to speak. If someone was giving complex testimony and needed more than five minutes, we would almost always grant it. I always felt that anything less than five minutes was too rushed, and particularly difficult and unfair to those who speak English as a second language. Occasionally over the years various members suggested shortening it, and I always pushed back, insisting on maintaining at least five minutes.
I retired from Council in December 2021, and in the following year the standard was changed to three minutes. This change has resulted in too much hurried testimony, missed opportunities to solve problems early, and complaints from residents who often feel they are not being heard. Rushed testimony doesn’t just miss key points– it also can come off as more hostile than intended, as hurried speakers often side-step pleasantries, don’t have adequate time to gauge how their comments are affecting their listeners, and sometimes may not feel they can slow down to breathe.
I personally recommend that Renton Council restore the five minute testimony. Current Renton Council meetings average about 45 minutes, and this change would only make them 5-10 minutes longer. Since Councilmembers are paid about $500 per week for their service, it seems fair that they give members of the public two more minutes each to speak on issues of concern to them. (It’s typical to have between 2-5 speakers, and five speakers talking for two extra minutes would only add ten minutes).
The Council has also become shy about discussing the issues brought up by the residents, and I’ve covered that concern in a previous blog entry here. The Council could add another five to ten minutes of interactive problem-solving with residents who come to speak, and still keep their average meetings to about an hour.
Below is a screenshot of the top of the agenda from my last Council Meeting in 2021, and the last paragraph shows that audience members still had five minutes each to speak to council, and even longer if we offered an exception (which we frequently did).
Below that is a chart showing the typical council meeting length.
This graph was provided to me by a resident who has been asking for increased time to speak at Renton City Council Meetings.
Sheryl, is that you?
Toastmasters 101 – If you can’t get your message across in 3 minutes, does it need to be said?
I suspect this is probably what they are thinking Robert. Toastmasters does typically challenge up-and-coming speakers to succinctly state their comments in under three minutes.
But many people approaching the council are not experienced public speakers, and they can have a number of challenges. Some examples are English as a second language, unfamiliarity with the setting and protocol, nervousness (being publically broadcast can increase this), overwhelming emotion about the topic, excessive time lost to introductions/pleasantries/greetings, and depending on their concern they may not be an expert on the topic.
And the gravity and complexity of their concerns can make their comments more like opening arguments in a courtroom (which average 20 minutes) and less like friendly toasts. Residents frequently speak about the safety of their families, threats to their livelihoods and/or abilities to cover rising expenses, risks to the health of our community, protection of their property, or other weighty concerns– often citing legal information and presenting arguments– which historically can take some people longer than three minutes.
And only one audience comment period. Can we blame trump for this?
Speaking of blaming people…..today I broke a shoelace on a hike. I’m pretty sure our current mayor and city council is responsible, so I’m going to take exactly 3 minutes Monday night at the council meeting telling them in great detail exactly why Renton should be ashamed of the poor quality of the shoelace that I bought at a shop years ago at the Landing.
In all seriousness, if the folks pointing fingers can do better, they should run for office. Or at least have a plan to make whatever their concern is better. Renton is facing challenging times and we need brave, strong leadership.
It’s not our fault! We have a committee that has been studying the whole “shoelace” issue, but they haven’t gotten back to use. Untill they do, it’s out of our hands. -Renton City Council
Oh soory. We changed the rules, and if you have a shoelace issue, you have to take it up with the WA Supreme Court. -Renton City Council.
Damn that’s cold. Enjoy your crappy apartments North Renton.
Robert’s shoelace hypothetical example is a good one for delving into the root of the new time constraints (thank you Robert!).
When I was still on Council, my first reaction to someone speaking about a broken shoelace would be intrigue, as I would assume they were either going use it as an allegory/metaphor, or they were going to inform me about some goofy new state or county law in which all replacement shoelaces had to be made from recycled paper, or something like that. If the speaker had not connected the shoelace to actual city policy within a couple minutes, one of us on council would have said “excuse me, can you tell us how the council can help you with this?” That would be better than watching the speaker continue making a futile plea for assistance while we kept it secret that the Council couldn’t help, followed by saying “thank you… next” when the clock ran out.
It makes it worse to then limit public speaking time for everyone to three minutes just because one speaker talked about shoelaces and never articulated how the city could help.
Sound Transit limits audience comment to two minutes, and they have now found themselves in a 30 billion dollar budget hole and many years behind schedule– having missed countless warnings that knowledgeable members of the public were trying to share with them. Short public comment times do not correlate to effective, efficient government.
As another example, people occasionally misuse our emergency 9-1-1 dispatch center to ask for directions, or make other inappropriate requests. But the solution to this problem would definitely NOT be to to limit all future emergency calls to three minutes.
On rare occasions the Renton Council has seen speakers that appeared to some as if they were trying to stall or “filibuster” the meetings, by taking the full allotted speaking time several weeks in a row to talk about something the council could not help with. But unreasonably limiting all public comments to try to stop one or two people from giving a few minutes of extra testimony is not fair to everyone else, and it makes government less responsive to the individuals it is serving.
Thank you Randy! We would be honored if you would consider serving our city leadership once again. You represent the interests of our community well. Thanks for keeping us informed in such a respectful way.