It may be a spicy sesh of heated debate🌶️👈😅as we're going to be covering the possibility of council making changes to/getting rid of public comment at the Monday night city council meetings.

And as a reminder- a City Council Caucus is an informal gathering of Cleveland City Council members. Council members use the meeting to discuss and gain clarity on issues and processes and to hold political discussions.

This meeting is NOT live-streamed, so I'll do my extra best to give you all the relevant info. Stay tuned- the caucus starts in 45 minutes.

Ok folks. I’m here. Standing room only.

It’s about 10 after. Blaine Griffin is laying down the rules. Everyone is welcome, but questions need to be directed to Council lawyers. “This is not a chance for you (the public) to give your feedback”

Council President Griffin is going over why we’re here: public comment has grown very contentious and disruptive in the last several weeks, especially with the recent conflict in the Middle East. Hate speech has become a problem.

A draft of changes to public comment policy was passed around.

Rachel, a lawyer representing Council, is going over how the 1st amendment applies to public comment in this situation. City Council meetings are a limited public forum, not a true public forum, like a street corner, where the government cannot interfere with free speech… (1/2)

Within the limited public forum of council meetings, it is legal to restrict speech. (2/2)
The main change being proposed is “Speaker comments shall be limited to one item currently under consideration by Council.”

Rebecca Maurer spoke out very strongly against changes to the public comment policy. “It feels like we’re punishing the public like they’re a teenager that did something we didn’t like.”

Rebecca Maurer also mentioned she wasn’t happy that the caucus was held while she and others were finishing up in a concurrent committee meeting.

Several members have mentioned the problem of non-Cleveland residents crowding out Cleveland residents when registering to give comment.
Members are discussing how to handle that… maybe Cleveland residents have priority.

Joe Jones and Blaine Griffin respond to Maurer- we deserve to feel safe and run the meetings with decorum.
Maurer replies: Eliminating public comment will not change the issues of safety.

Earlier, Rebecca Maurer mentioned that eliminating/limiting public comment makes it seem like Council is scared of its residents and what they have to say.
This comment, which she stands by, seems to have offended several of the (notably male) members of council.

Her comment was called “asinine” at least twice. That did not feel good to me. She spoke forcefully but respectfully.
Public comment during committee meetings were brought up as an under utilized resource. It’s not clear to me what the procedures around this is…

Kazy suggested moving public comment to the end Council meetings. He doesn’t think we should restrict the speech. “It’s only 3 minutes. Let them have their say”

“We’re trying to make this fair for everybody” says Blaine Griffin. “That’s what this is about. We want a safe, productive meeting with decorum.”

Kazy also mentioned getting the contact info of commenters, in case council members want to follow up with a speaker. He too, mentioned prioritizing Cleveland residents.

The caucus meeting ended at exactly 1:30pm. It was fun guys!

Have questions? Think we got something wrong? Send any inquiries on the meeting or these tweets to @cledocumenters. Or email us at cledocumenters@gmail.com