An experiment with an additional public comment period at the beginning of the Frelinghuysen Township Committee meetings will be a thing of the past at the April 23 meeting.
The committee added a public discussion limited to items on the agenda late last year, limiting it to agenda items, after numerous residents expressed dissatisfaction about having no opportunity to comment on meeting topics until the public portion at the end, when all topics can be discussed.
“It was an experiment because people were complaining that they didn’t have the opportunity to talk about things on the agenda,” said Mayor Shannon Drylie after the March 19 meeting. “But it got to the point where it was too much.”
At the February meeting, in front of a packed town hall, the floor was opened to public comments on agenda items at the start. However, the ten minutes allotted for that segment was exceeded by more than an hour, with some discussions straying from the agenda.
This put Drylie in the unenviable position of either allowing the sometimes-heated conversation to continue or cutting it off and risking the perception of stifling debate.
Unlike most surrounding municipalities, the Frelinghuysen Township Committee did not offer a public comment period at the beginning of meetings until November 2024. The meetings traditionally include public comments as the last item on the agenda, held after the governing body has settled its business.
Public hearings are held before a vote on an ordinance, but discussion is limited to that ordinance.
Hardwick, Hope, Blairstown and Knowlton open their meetings to the public immediately after the Pledge of Allegiance and the required reading of the Open Public Meetings Act. At that point, discussion is limited to agenda items. Residents wishing to speak about non-agenda items — such as potholes or bears stealing garbage — have that opportunity at the public hearing at the end of the meeting.
Most governing bodies have time limits for public comments overall and for individual speakers, but those rules are rarely enforced. Most speakers are given the time they need to make their points. Extensive public discussions may be curtailed if they becomes hostile or repetitive.
Joe brings decades of journalism experience to the Ridge View Echo, covering everything from local school boards to the U.S. Supreme Court. A former National Law Journal editor and Columbia Law School press officer, he now enjoys telling community stories in Blairstown, where he lives with his wife, Rose, and their two dachshunds.
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
