OXFORD – Much of Wednesday evening's Oxford Town Board meeting was business as usual, but some latter discussion with regard to drafting new policy and procedures pertaining to public comment garnered a nod from some community members.
During the July 8 meeting, Town Supervisor Lawrence Wilcox indicated that the board fielded some discussion regarding public comment, and said that often “it seems like sometimes we are being set up for public ridicule, not public comment.”
According to Lawrence, consultation with the NYS Association of Towns and an attorney yielded a recommendation for review of the appropriate sections of Town Law.
But state law does not require local town boards to grant any privilege of the floor to community members, and Wilcox reminded that he brought the practice to the people when he was elected into office as Supervisor back in 1998.
“When I was on the Town Board before I was Supervisor, there was no place in meetings for public comment,” said Wilcox. “One of the first items of business we did in 1998 was to establish a time for public comment period; five minutes per comment – and we have abided by that, for the most part.”
One resident at the July meeting asked Wilcox and the board if it was “trying to restrict public comment,” to which Wilcox noted that there has been a change in the “tenor” of the dialogue between the board and residents.
“It’s no longer public comment, it’s trying to put the Town Board on the spot and make them look bad. I’d like the board to go through the law and come back with a procedure that we can abide by,” said Wilcox.
And Wilcox isn’t alone. Overall, the general consensus among board members is that public comments should be brief and concise, and not reiterated or argumentative, but some residents still disagree.
Board member Jerry Locke lamented that in some instances – after an exchange of dialogue between board member(s) and community members – the conversation turns into a debate if said community member doesn’t agree with the board.
What progress was made during the “discussion about the discussion,” was that Wilcox and Locke agreed to meet to draft recommendations and revisions to the current policy that pertains to public comment, and bring those to the board in the future.
“We’re not trying to stymie the individual concerns of the residents, but sometimes things need to be cut off [so we can move on] – we're just looking at limiting the comments, not curtail public comment,” said Locke.