Thread

1. bpodgursky · 1790180661 · focus · HN ↗

   > Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue. Police arrested her while Schrag looked on. “Sorry ma’m,” the mayor said as police led Heider away in handcuffs.

   I mean, what is the appropriate response to someone refusing follow protocol after giving guidance that there's a different topic at hand now? There was a comment session on Flock cameras, people talked about it, then they moved onto housing. You can't run a public meeting where people get to drag every issue back to their favorite issue uninhibited, it just literally doesn't work. The meeting would run 24/7/365 and still nothing would get done.

   1. golf1052 · 1790181510 · focus · HN ↗

      How it works in Seattle is that people are supposed to sign up and talk about things on the agenda for that council meeting but they are not stopped from talking about anything. This is why you'll see people like Alex Tsimerman (look him up) speak nonsense at nearly every council meeting. The councilpeople just ignore those comments and I believe they aren't included in the meeting record since they're off topic.

      There's other ways to also try and limit the length of public comment, if there's more than say 30 people signed up, reduce public comment from 2 minutes per person to 1 minute. Be aggressive about cutting mics rather than giving everyone 10 extra seconds. For topics that council knows will be contentious and attract a lot of public comment they'll either hold multiple public comment blocks that day or literally just do a marathon session, 4-5 hours of just public comment.

      Finally, if enough people are frustrated enough about an issue to constantly show up to public comment to talk about it, councilmembers should try meeting with those people at a different forum to at least hear them out to try and diffuse their anger. Council meetings should not be the only other place where residents can talk to their councilmembers.

      1. dekhn · 1790182763 · focus · HN ↗

         Thank you for mentioning this. I think a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand city council meetings and just how many disruptive people who want to play out the clock talking.

         1. Matl · 1790184676 · focus · HN ↗

            > I think a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand city council meetings and just how many disruptive people who want to play out the clock talking

            That may be the case but here it would seem a discussion about Flock was skipped on purpose so that people who want to bring it up would have no choice but to do so during an 'unrelated' discussion.

            1. dekhn · 1790184886 · focus · HN ↗

               Well, I think that's a subjective reading of the video, right? We don't actually know the intent.

               1. Matl · 1790240311 · focus · HN ↗

                  > I think that's a subjective reading of the video, right?

                  Sure, to the extent that most reporting or takes on news events are subjective, despite many trying to claim otherwise.

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