Like several past meetings, Thursday’s Gainesville City Commission session had a dispute over public comment.
This time it came when frequent speaker and biomass opponent Jo Beaty arrived and stepped to the podium as the 6 p.m. time slot for public comment was winding down. Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tem Lauren Poe, who was running the meeting with Mayor Craig Lowe at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, informed Beaty should could not speak because she had not filled out a card in advance.
When Lowe presides over meetings, he requires that speakers fill out a card in advance to speak at the 6 p.m. public comment period. Poe said he was trying to maintain consistency with that.
Beaty took issue, saying she’d called the city clerk before 6 p.m. to say she planned to speak. She remained at the podium for a time but Poe eventually went on with the meeting.
Throughout the evening session, the incident was revisited multiple times. A few minutes later, as commissioners commented on public comment, Todd Chase said the requirements to sign up in advance and to limit comments to three minutes have not been consistently enforced. Chase said speakers with positive comments are typically the ones allowed latitude because it’s “more fun to listen to people who agree with you.”
Commissioner Yvonne Hinson-Rawls, on the other hand, supported Poe. She said the city had given Beaty 6 1/2 hours to speak last week. That was a reference to the Jan. 9 City Commission workshop on the biomass plant. The meeting was required as part of the settlement of a lawsuit that Beaty’s group, Gainesville citizens CARE, filed alleging the biomass contract negotiations violated the Sunshine Law.
Hinson-Rawls said if someone had something new to say , she might favor allowing them to speak.
Beaty then approached the podium again to respond.
“You didn’t give me 6 1/2 hours,” she said. “You gave the public 6 1/2 hours.”
Some two hours later, during the final time for public comment, biomass opponent and frequent speaker Debbie Martinez stepped forward to take issue with how commissioners handled Beaty’s attempt to talk and public comment in general.
“This is exactly why the citizens are sick of you,” Martinez said.
Former commissioner and current mayoral candidate Ed Braddy stepped forward to describe the treatment of Beaty as “rather disgraceful.” Braddy also questioned if Lowe had the authority to set public comment requirements on his own.
When Beaty spoke between Martinez and Braddy, her comments were focused not on biomass but primarily on criticism of the manner in which the city has provided the public with information on its recent redistricting.
At the end, Poe responded to Braddy by saying that the “running of the meeting is the prerogative of the chair, always has been.”
He said he was sitting in for Lowe and did not want to change the way the meeting was usually run.