The final discussion item of last Monday night’s Marshalltown City Council meeting pertained to the topic of discussion itself — specifically, whether or not public comments should be allowed on individual agenda items — and a 4-3 vote ultimately sank the changes Mayor/Acting City Administrator Joel Greer proposed in an attempt to “streamline” the meetings going forward.

Currently, Marshalltown allows the public to comment on any topic of their choosing at the beginning of meetings (which was moved after previously being held at the end), and they can also step forward to comment on agenda items as the councilors are considering them.

Greer said he spoke to leaders in similarly sized communities around the state, and he asked the council to consider adjusting the limit for public comments at the beginning of the meeting from three to five minutes but encompassing all agenda items (or items not on the agenda) the commenter wishes to address. In that case, commenters would not be allowed to speak on specific agenda items unless a public hearing was being held as designated by Iowa Code.

He described it as an effort to speed up council proceedings and said moving the public comment period from the end to the beginning of meetings has also been beneficial.

Councilor Greg Nichols was the first to speak up, indicating he supported the increased amount of time to speak at the beginning of meetings but objected to shutting down public comments on the individual agenda items.

“I think we would’ve lost in the discussions this evening if it had just been five minutes at the beginning, and then as the issue of something like funding came up, citizens who cared did not have the opportunity to share,” Nichols said. “So I understand wanting a shorter meeting, but I also want to get greater citizen participation and increase citizen involvement.”

Fellow Councilor Barry Kell said he used the recent wage study to find comparable communities in Iowa and see how they handle comments, and in his research, most of them were in line with Greer’s proposal. Kell also pointed to a section of the council manual that says meetings should be used for “bona fide debate of public matters” rather than “fact finding (or) gathering, which should be accomplished due to due diligence before the meeting.”

“We have a responsibility to the citizens to come prepared to our meetings. With that, our phone numbers (and) our emails are published. They can reach out to us. We can have those discussions in greater detail at the point of whenever they have their concern leading up to the meeting,” Kell said.

Councilor and Mayor Pro Tem Mike Ladehoff echoed Kell in announcing that he would support the changes and described council meetings as “basically a business meeting” between the councilors.

“The public has plenty of time to talk to me, and I don’t cut anybody off. So I like the idea of going to this. As the city gets busier and busier, we’re gonna be looking at longer and longer and longer meetings, and any way we can streamline that without limiting public comment, I think, is a good way to go,” Ladehoff said.

Councilor Gary Thompson, who opposed the change, noted that outside of budget season, the council only meets twice a month, and he felt the taxpayers should have a right to be heard.

“I’m not afraid to hear pros and cons for me or against me. I like the debate. I like the lively debate we have now, and I’d like to keep it that way,” Thompson said.

With the floor opened up to public comment, Mark Eaton called himself “a shareholder in this company” as a citizen of Marshalltown and said he would like to be able to voice his opinion on matters of importance. He said the school board had “killed” public comment with its policy moving all of them to the beginning of the meeting.

Doris Kinnick has been attending meetings for about a year now and said she likes the public comment being at the beginning along with allowing for open debate on individual agenda items. Lyle Hineman, Tom Weber and Linda Clark also supported keeping the comment policy as is, with Weber noting that he likes the debate and discussion he’s heard in the few meetings he has attended.

A motion to bring the changes back through a formal resolution failed with only three affirmative votes (Kell, Ladehoff and Jeff Schneider) and Al Hoop, Mark Mitchell, Nichols and Thompson opposed.