Members of the public will continue to have two opportunities to speak during Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meetings. That’s after assembly members unanimously killed a proposal Tuesday to remove the second opportunity from their regular agendas.
Assembly President Peter Ribbens introduced the ordinance last month with the goal of making assembly meetings more efficient and clarifying parts of meeting agendas. But during a committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, he said he’d become hesitant since bringing it forward.
“In the time that's proceeded since then, there's been quite a bit of comments from a variety of people,” he said. “And so I'm not sure that the time for this ordinance is right now.”
Currently, members can address the assembly about non-agenda items for an aggregate of 20 minutes at the beginning of the meeting. They can also address the assembly about anything during a second public comment period at the end of the meeting. Ribbens’ ordinance would have removed that second opportunity and made the first opportunity longer by ten minutes.
Those who opposed getting rid of the second public comment period said it allows people to comment on items that happened during the meeting and encourages face-to-face interactions between the assembly and constituents.
Kalifornsky resident Joan Coarr was one of multiple people to speak against the ordinance during the assembly’s regular meeting Tuesday evening.
“If there's something somebody disagrees with and there's no time to tell you at the end of the meeting after it's all done – I guess we can write letters and complain – but we don't have a chance to rebut anything,” she said.
Homer resident Alex Koplin expressed his opposition to the ordinance through song.
“Please keep our time, we like our time, so please, let’s keep the time,” he sang. “It’s not much, but we like it, for our voice can be so fine.”
Some assembly members said they’d support cleaning up agenda language, but not eliminating a section of public comment. After a 6-3 vote against postponing action on the ordinance, all assembly members voted to kill it.
Assembly member Willy Dunne said he’d tried to keep an open mind, but that public input was clear.
“I wanted to come into it with an open mind and hear what people had to say and hear what the public comment was on this ordinance,” he said. “And I haven’t heard one public comment supporting it.”
Tuesday’s assembly meeting is available to stream on the borough’s legislative website.
