Should City, County Restrict Their Public Forum Sessions?
Give Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley credit for facing up to some tough issues during the four months he’s held office. Golf fees and grass field burning come to mind.
Candor forever. Controversy be damned.
Now, Roskelley wants to govern more tightly the open-forum session at which the public can comment at the end of the commissioners’ televised regular meetings. But Roskelley, who wanted rules limiting speakers’ subject matter and the frequency and length of their presentations, was outvoted; however, his concern is the same one that earlier led the Spokane City Council to remove its own public forum from cable TV altogether.
Roskelley and a majority of the City Council think a handful of folks with narrow agendas abuse these forums. Therefore, presumably in the name of protecting the rest of the public’s interest, they favor restricting the public’s forum.
You’ll get no argument here if you say the forum sessions are dominated by rambling presentations that serve no constructive purpose. But is it elected officials’ role - or yours or mine - to decide whose comments are constructive? Is it anyone’s?
And if it’s not, how do you prevent the official business sessions of local government from becoming a circus?
Sidewalk superintendent
Like John Roskelley, Spokane newcomer Don Chase is not one to turn his back on problems. In the year since he moved here from St. Paul, Minn., he has begun a crusade to defend the public right of way that runs along city streets.
A self-appointed monitor of the obstructions and sidewalk deterioration that interfere with people’s use of those rights of way, Chase has had a running, but seemingly fruitless, correspondence with City Hall.
“I recognize what’s on the books,” said Irv Reed, director of planning services for the city, “but that’s not a very high priority.”
Besides reminding us that enacting a law is not the same thing as solving a problem, Reed’s words will comfort property owners who legally are responsible for repairing sidewalks and clearing away shrubbery that impedes public access - especially since it often is city-owned trees whose roots turn sidewalks into obstacle courses.
“Bagpipes” readers’ thoughts are invited.
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