photo by: Rochelle Valverde/Journal-World

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., is pictured on Jan. 31, 2023.

Lawrence leaders could make changes this week to when and how often members of the public can offer comments at Lawrence City Commission meetings.

At last week’s City Commission meeting, Mayor Lisa Larsen brought up the possibility of changing the order of the commission’s agenda to move the general public comment period to the end of the meeting. As it stands, general public comment is one of the first steps on each week’s agenda. Along with moving the public comment period to later in the meeting, Larsen also proposed offering a public comment period at only one meeting per month.

A discussion about potentially revising procedures for general public comment is on Tuesday’s agenda. While city staff isn’t providing any specific recommendations to commissioners regarding action they should take, the agenda does include a chart providing comparisons of how 10 other governing bodies handle their procedures for public comment.

That group includes nearby cities like Topeka, Lenexa, Overland Park and Olathe, and also Boulder, Colorado, and Madison, Wisconsin. The chart notes each governing body’s public comment time limit, where it appears on their agendas, whether sign-up is required to speak and any other disclaimers given to the public before their public comment periods begin.

This isn’t the first time the City Commission has considered a change to how it handles public comment. Back in September, commissioners voiced an interest in putting some limits on general public comment at meetings and capping the period allowed for those comments at 30 minutes. About a week later, commissioners pulled back on that plan after learning from city staff that the average length of general public comment from 2019 to September of 2022 was in the majority of cases less than 30 minutes.

This time around, there was some support for Larsen’s proposed changes. Commissioner Brad Finkeldei, for example, said last week he was supportive of moving the public comment period to the end of the agenda, as did Commissioner Courtney Shipley. Both commissioners said their opinions on limiting public comment to one meeting per month would likely depend on whether the commission approves reorganizing its agenda order.

Commissioner Amber Sellers, meanwhile, wasn’t as ready to voice strong support either for or against either change as of last week’s meeting.

“I think we’re trying to hamstring everyone to say what their position is on something when it’s more broad and more open to just say, ‘Let’s have a conversation about if and when and where we have public comment,'” Sellers said. “That seems to be the through line to all of this, that it’s about if and when and whether or not we want to have public comment during commission meetings.”

Commissioner Bart Littlejohn appeared to briefly voice support for the changes Larsen outlined, but didn’t go into detail.

The potential changes to general public comment come after the City Commission last week approved a change in how it allows members of the public to provide comment about items on the commission’s consent agenda. Generally, items included on a consent agenda are considered routine and can be approved by one vote from commissioners without any discussion.

Until this week, commissioners had routinely granted any request from a member of the public to pull an item from the consent agenda for public discussion and a separate vote. But a handful of public commenters were making frequent requests and commissioners voted 4-0 last week — with Commissioner Amber Sellers abstaining — to allow the pulling of most consent agenda items to occur only at the discretion of commissioners.

There are still some consent items — referred to as “quasi-judicial” — that can be removed for public discussion by a member of the public. At last week’s meeting, Deputy City Attorney Randy Larkin said that quasi-judicial label could apply to agenda topics that ask commissioners to use city code to determine whether someone’s rights “are being infringed, or whether they’re entitled to what it is they are seeking.”

That could include items such as most zoning decisions, issues related to condemnation and appeals regarding property or liberty rights. There’s one such item on the agenda for this week’s meeting: a special use permit request from the Children’s Community Center for a day care center at 346 Maine St.

A pair of requests to set future hearings on whether to grant incentives packages to two development projects, one for New Hampshire Lofts and the other for the Turnhalle building, are among the items on this week’s consent agenda that members of the public won’t be able to request to be pulled for further discussion.

In other business, the commission will:

• Once again consider adopting Ordinance No. 9996, which would impose a community ban on single-use plastic bags.

The long-discussed ordinance failed to pass after a split 2-2 vote when it was last discussed at the City Commission’s June 20 meeting, and commissioners agreed to bring the ordinance back for reconsideration a few weeks later.

As the Journal-World reported, Commissioners Brad Finkeldei and Amber Sellers voted against the ordinance in late June, with Finkeldei noting concerns about how the ordinance would affect local businesses and Sellers voicing hesitancy over the necessity of hiring a full-time code compliance officer to enforce the ban.

The Lawrence City Commission will convene at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.