Voters Vote. Can They Talk?

Trumbull’s Town Council's second post-election meeting certainly was a strange one. Resolutions were read and acted on with nary a peep from council members - leading Council Chair Carl Massaro to ask at one point, “cat got your tongue?” Perhaps that’s to be expected with 13 of its 21 members newly elected.

But one item did start to generate interest. Councilwoman Vickie Tesoro made an impassioned plea for a resolution whose passage would permit public comments at every meeting. What is a right in many communities, is, in Trumbull, now the chair’s prerogative. Ms. Tesoro read a list of communities where residents may speak publicly to the council assembled, about every issue consequential enough for it to have been placed on the council’s agenda. 

One community she identified was Westport, whose Representative Town Meeting allows any resident to speak to every resolution before the RTM begins its discussion. And, believe me, there is no shortage of opinion giving and advice offering in Westport!

Before action could be taken Suzanne Testani, Chair of the Legislation & Administration Committee, where the item was discussed and voted down last week, asked to have the resolution returned to the committee, then brought back for the council's consideration at February’s meeting. Her motion carried.

The backstory is that the committee defeated the resolution on the back of largely synthetic and undemocratic arguments. Points such as “People can speak to a councilman at any time. Public comment could result in keeping the staff and the attorneys at the meetings longer resulting in an additional cost to the town,” and “If there were 50-60 people that could lengthen the meeting by hours.”

Ms. Tesoro reminded the committee that the chair has the right to limit a speakers’ time, and the duty to ask that speakers not be redundant.

Chairman Massaro stated "the Town Council traditionally has not had a public comment section…(that) all of the council is available to their constituents.” The discussion turned to whether comments would be germane to the topic, and whether people would grandstand. Massaro has been an even handed chair, well able to separate the germane from the pointless and frivolous. 

One can only hope that granting residents the right to speak will at some point make Trumbull's problem the same as Westport's: “Everything’s been said, but not everyone’s said it.”