A day after being sworn into office, Mayor John Safford introduced a new slate of rules intended to curb lengthy and sometimes raucous public comment periods during city council meetings.
Safford, a Republican, ran on a campaign of returning civility to a city hall that in recent years has seen demonstrations and disruptions from Black Lives Matter protestors and public feuds between council members.
During the first meeting of 2024, Safford explained some of the changes.
“The rules are not much different than they’ve been in the past. We are going to implement 3 minutes [per person], we are going to limit the time to speak to 30 minutes. We are going to be quite strict about timing,” explained Safford.
Safford says eventually, he would like to see public comments moved to 2 minutes per speaker.
A change from the long-standing practice of allowing anyone to approach the microphone ahead of regular business, meeting attendees who wish to address the city council will now have to register their names and addresses before meetings begin.
Safford says the new rules are aimed to prohibit “behaviors which disrupt the conduct of the meeting.” This includes clapping, whistling, yelling, and other actions that could interrupt or delay the council meetings.
Second-term Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran questioned Safford about enforcement.
“The way I read that, it sounds like people are getting arrested just like you and I walking through this a couple weeks ago where the end result is hands on a human being on a live camera and we’re going to choose which police officer’s career we want to end by doing that, I’m against that,” said Moran.
“No, OK. So, that’s what I’m trying to explain to you, it will not happen,” said Safford.
“It says they’ll remove them from the room, how’s that going to happen?” asked Moran.
“Removal from the room does not mean arrest,” explained Safford.
Safford’s plan also will install a Sergeant at Arms who will be permitted to remove citizens from the meeting room.
Moran and new Commissioner of Public Safety Tim Coll, a fellow Democrat, discussed how best to reduce tensions in future city council meetings.
“I just want to add to comment, I think the objective is to deescalate the situation, not escalate,” said Coll.
“Amen,” said Moran.
“And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re gonna give notice—the mayor’s going to give notice and direction, if people are disrupting the meeting, to please stop. And we’re gonna deescalate, deescalate, deescalate. That’s the objective,” said Coll.
“I would offer that the best way to deescalate this entire situation is to enact the 50-points, to do so in a way that the community accepts,” explained Moran.
Moran is referring to recommendations put forward by the state-mandated civilian police reform task force, many of which have not been implemented.
Tracy Sangare, the mother of Saratoga BLM activists, is concerned about discrimination under the new rules.
“Outrageous things happen, and then people get punished for their outrage. So, I’ve been in this room where people in the back have said racist things, and then somebody from BLM has yelled at them and then people start yelling at BLM for being disruptive. So, there are things that I’m really concerned about, like how these rules are going to be enforced,” said Sangare.
In his own effort to manage meetings and reduce disruptions last term, former Mayor Ron Kim moved the start of regular meetings an hour earlier to 6 p.m. and altered the structure of the public comment period.
Under Safford and the new council, the start time has been moved back to 7 p.m.
