Conducting public business in the wee hours of the morning is a disservice to both commissioners and residents.

If taking up public agenda items after midnight is the best the Lawrence-Douglas Planning Commission can do, it’s time to look at a different way of doing business.

People concerned about an overnight shelter that would serve homeless people even if they had been drinking were dealt a grave disservice at Wednesday night’s Planning Commission meeting. Supporters and opponents of the shelter at 10th and Kentucky streets waited through six hours of unrelated items until 12:30 a.m. when planning commissioners finally worked their way to that point on their agenda.

By that time, some people who had wanted to speak had given up and gone home. By the time the vote was taken, Planning Commissioner Ernie Angino had followed their lead. His departure contributed to a tie vote that, according to city rules, counts as a negative recommendation to the Lawrence City Commission. That means a supermajority (four votes) of the City Commission would be required to override the negative recommendation instead of a simple majority (three votes) to concur with a positive recommendation.

The kicker? Angino said Thursday he probably would have voted in favor of the shelter, resulting in a 5-4 positive recommendation on the issue.

Most observers probably are sympathetic to Angino. It’s obvious that commissioners and the public shouldn’t be expected to participate in marathon meetings that last six or eight hours and run well past midnight. Planning commissioners have rules that limit their meeting length, but they voted at least three times to extend their meeting on Wednesday; they should have gone home much earlier.

Meetings that last so long and so late are a disservice both to the public and to planning commissioners, who receive no pay for the many hours they put in on city business. Such meetings discourage public participation and hinder the ability of planning commissioners to give thoughtful, clear-headed consideration to the issues before them.

It has been suggested that the Planning Commission start its meetings earlier, but setting meetings during regular working hours would limit public participation and the ability of many working people to serve on the commission.

A better option would be for the Planning Commission to meet more often. But Planning Commission Chairman Tom Jennings may have been on to something when he commented Thursday, “I think a lot of our problems are self-inflicted.” Wednesday’s meeting was, in fact, the second meeting in as many weeks and was called to finish the prior week’s agenda. Jennings didn’t want to carry items over again because people already had waited too long for decisions from the commission.

The process of getting an item on the Planning Commission agenda is a long one and people need answers on these issues. Routinely having two meetings a month might allow items to be considered in a more timely way, but it seems that commissioners also need to find more efficient ways to deal with their agenda. Perhaps, for instance, commissioners could deal with non-public hearing items at the end of the agenda to make it easier for those who want to address a public hearing item.

If any of us had been in Angino’s shoes, we probably would have taken — or at least wanted to take — the same action he did. It’s bad enough when late meetings drive members of the public away before the agenda is finished, but when those making an early exit include a commissioner, it’s clearly time for a change.