A third is at a scheduled public hearing on a specific action. The point of a public hearing is to make sure that a full public participation has been part of the process. Some years ago the BOC changed the schedule so that public hearings were at the Ways and Means meeting (effectively the first reading). In this way the public could be heard prior to the final consideration of an item. I hope that this is still the case.

I agree that timing needs to be considered with respect to decisions. I’m still trying to decide whether Council’s scheduling of a public hearing on the second reading is the best. It does, for example, allow public comment on CM Higgin’s substantial amendments to the Area, Height and Placement changes.

One problem is that public hearings or forums are often scheduled as a check-off in a procedure without any considered way to incorporate points brought up by the public. But if the timing is adjusted properly, a public record is made of those comments that can be entered into the deliberation. That public record is an important part of the process.

If you (#11) are quoting Commissioner Smith’s comments with regard to engaging the public, I don’t believe that he ever proposed a meaningful substitute.

The point was that public comment is often late in the process and is serial monologue rather than dialog. This commissioner was interested in other, better ways to engage the community in meaningful discussion.

I’m still not sure what those are, and I think there is a role for mobilizing public turnout on issues. I suspect such mobilizations affected the decision not to re-consider the Heritage Row proposal and on the Argo Dam discussions. But, as this commissioner indicated, public comment just before a vote is not the place to make nuanced points to fine-tune a policy. Not only does the format not allow back-and-forth, also by the time public commentary comes around, usually it’s too late for that.

You are, indeed, overly generous. I believe you assume good will based on your own abundance of the same. I have not seen it in the majority of our public servants for nearly a decade.

I won’t, frankly, include Ms. Lowenstein in that, who has been openly scornful and dismissive (or contemptuous) of the public on so many occasions that it is impossible any more to give her the benefit of the doubt. (The most recent quote that I recall is that we were “sulky”.)

Let’s differentiate between public officials “listening” and their “doing what you want them to do”. They have been elected to use their minds, their experience, and their understanding of the issues to make a judicious decision, not to take an instant poll and vote according to a majority opinion of those speaking at a particular moment.

I’m obviously a skeptical and questioning person and I understand the frustration and desperation of those who do not agree with certain actions. Still, we must have faith in our institutions and those who have committed to serve them.

Meanwhile, we must continue to advocate for the course that we consider essential for the vision of our city, our state, and our country that each of us considers to be best. And to work for candidates who support our views.

I apologize for the stuffiness and triteness of what I just said. But what else is there?

You are in good company, I am often confused with my son. I do wonder if that is due to my youthful vitality, or to his maturity.

“Even the dull and ignorant, they, too have their story”, from Max Ehrmann’s 1927 poem “Desiderata”, strikes me as applying to council no less than to any other forum. I can see being annoyed with someone who is fully capable of composing a sharply-focused, articulate, less-than-or equal-to-three-minute speech, who chooses to ramble or be inarticulate. It strikes me as harder to condemn someone for the crime of being themselves in front of elected officials, even when others might find “who they are” to be inadequate. Petitioning government for the redress of grievances (even when you know they are not paying attention) is among the defining elements of American civilization. Should there be elected officials who find the public less entertaining than a “Finnius and Ferb” cartoon, such officials might wish to consider whether or not they would be happier at other hobbies. It strikes me that citizens should tolerate their fellows, just as we hope that our fellows tolerate us.

I wish I shared your optimism about the efficacy of Public Comment time. The only time I have seen Public Comment be effective was the night of the vote on the Elks Lodge rezoning. At the time, it seemed that the sheer number of citizens was what got their attention (Joan Lowenstien referred to them as “A hoard”, as I recall, and I remember that the expressions on the faces of the Council to appeared to express fear for their physical safety), not the passion or substance of anything that anyone actually said. I, myself, cannot recall any other time when it appeared that anyone on Council was affected by anything said by the public.

Why am I not surprised to learn that you might have been a more open and consciencious office holder than many elected officials, past and present?
- JOHN Floyd

I hope that members of the public will continue to assemble with pointed, cogent, and effective comments on the business at hand. I think that such commentary can change the course of council’s actions, if not reverse it.

Of course, as you indicate, it is the right of individuals to waste everyone’s time if they wish with continual poorly focused statements. Since council has a limited number of speaking spots, I consider that self-indulgent, but can’t think of a way to limit it.

I appreciate the effort the Chronicle makes to “chronicle” comments from the public as well as the rest of the business at these meetings.

Public Commentary before public bodies is not for the benefit of the public body: it’s for the benefit of the public. Only a person with little experience of our public bodies imagines that official’s minds are open when the public speaks. Rather, Public Commentary is the closest thing Ann Arbor has to a Speaker’s Corner. The real audience includes other attendees, reporters, Chron readers, and Community Access Television viewers. I think, too, though, one of the most important audiences are the speakers themselves. That is, many people simply need a public place to vent their frustration with officials, decisions, processes, or The Universe. They need to have their day in “court”, so to speak. They have, I suspect, little to no illusion that any pubic official, will change his or her mind, on any topic, due to any three-minute (or less!) speech, no matter how eloquent, passionate, or forcefully reasoned it may be. Rather, these nominal petitions-for-the-redress-of-grievances are, in the end, more statements about the speaker’s passion, their sense of membership in the polity, their need to get something off their chests, than serious attempts to sway, say, Steve Taylor’s thinking on the library lot convention center. In any case, public commentary is not for the benefit of elected officials.

The cynical among us will agree with your observation that public officials seem not to want comments from the public, let alone Public Commentary; the less cynical will agree with your suggestion that citizen’s opinions are worth more when presented via other methods. Public comment, in the end, exists because people want to have their say, period. It isn’t intended to be effective. If folks really wanted to speak effectively to local elected officials, they would save their eloquence for the first Tuesday in November.

The tedium of attending a solid year of public body meetings would destroy a lesser man. Surviving the tedium of actually listening to that year of public body meetings is nothing short of astounding heroism. Surviving the tedium of digesting, then summarizing, a year’s worth of public body meetings is a Herculean, nay, a Sisyphusian, labor. Demi-god strength meets eternal damnation. I admire your stamina, your heart, your indomitable will to endure. But public commentary doesn’t exist to save anyone from Death-by-Tedium – not even you.

Democracy is such a damned nuisance.