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My name is (omitted). I was a candidate for Town Board in 2023 in the Town of (omitted).
I ran with open government as a major platform and used a lot of NY Coalition for Open Government’s research for my campaign.
I’m reaching out as I am suspicious that my town has removed public comment from their agendas. I spoke at the January 2nd Reorganization Meeting, encouraging earlier start times for meetings and to livestream.
Their next meeting on February 5th, which I could not attend, removed “Public Comment” from the agenda.
My question is: Is it legal for a town to not allow public comment? I am planning on attending a meeting in the future to address these concerns and others, but I wanted to check with you first.
Glad to hear that you are actively seeking to improve transparency in the town of (omitted)..
Unfortunately, New York’s Open Meetings Law does not require that there be a public comment period at a town board meeting. The New York Coalition For Open Government is seeking to change the law to make public comments mandatory.
It is up to each town board whether they want to allow public comments at their meetings or not. That being said, if public comments were allowed previously in order to take them away, there should have been a resolution filed to change the existing policy with a public discussion and vote on the issue. The question this raises is when was eliminating public comments discussed, who made the decision to eliminate them, and when?
You can ask the town board members in an email to explain why public comments have been removed and who made the decision to do so? This is a great issue for you to raise and cause a ruckus about, as everyone understands the importance in a Democracy of the right to speak to your elected officials and to be heard. Start a petition drive to bring back public comments and get a group of people to show up at a meeting with their mouths muzzled as a protest. Perhaps you can interest a local news reporter in doing an article about this issue?
I also looked at the town website, and they are not posting meeting documents online at least 24 hours prior to the meeting as required by the Open Meetings Law. Posting a one-page agenda with meeting topics is not sufficient. The public has the right to see the resolutions the town board will be voting on and all other meeting documents prior to the meeting.
Keep up the fight, and I hope this information helps.