At the coming Council Meeting on Monday, Nov 25, the Council will potentially vote on adopting new “Standing Rules” that govern the basic operations of the City Council and its meetings. Many of the items are heavily procedural, but there’s a couple items with impact to residents that I wanted to highlight for you:

  • The section for Rules 36-46 relate to those around Public Hearings.
  • Rule 40 provides each member of the public three (3) minutes to share on their topic. (This is an increase from 2 minutes previously and reflects feedback from residents received over the past year.)
  • Rule 40 also describes a new mechanism where, if 5 or more members of the public are present to speak on the same subject, they can designate one member representative to speak for a longer five (5) minutes.

For reference, the sections of the document are:

  1. Rules of Order
  2. Open Meetings
  3. Notice of Special Meeting or Work Sessions
  4. Election of President
  5. Duties - President of the Council
  6. Agendas
  7. Conduct & Decorum of Members
  8. Standing Committees – City Council
  9. Order of Business
  10. Public Hearing
  11. Report of the Mayor and City Council
  12. Legislative Proceedings
  13. Introduction and Passage of Legislation
  14. Appeal
  15. Virtual & Video Meetings
  16. Filling a Vacancy of the Council
  17. City Council - Boards/ Commissions/ Committees
  18. Miscellaneous

You can download a copy of the latest version as of today, and also look to the City of Laurel Official Meetings page for any updates that are included for consideration in future meetings.

Please reach out to me directly with any thoughts or feedback, and feel free to join us on Monday, Nov 25 to share your thoughts for Council on any item as well.