Residents feel stifled by rules that limit public comments at Vancouver City Council meetings

At a Vancouver City Council meeting on Monday, Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle stopped a man from speaking about his problems with a homeless camp next to his house because the issue didn’t directly relate to any items on the agenda.

“Shame on you guys, all of you, for cutting back on our ability to come and talk to you,” Vancouver resident Steve Herman said.

He and other Vancouver residents say they feel stifled by the city council’s decision in 2022 to limit public comments to issues directly related to that meeting’s agenda. They argue the decision prevents the council from hearing about important, timely issues.

“It seems like every place else, it’s much easier to speak to the city councils than it is here in Vancouver,” Vancouver resident Rick Ackman said. “They’re very, very isolated.”

Vancouver’s restriction — similar to ones observed by councils in Seattle, Tacoma, Camas and Clark County — dates to 2011.

That’s when Vancouver’s council adopted a policy that “community communications,” scheduled for the beginning of city council meetings, need to be related to agenda items. However, meetings still included a “community forum” for members of the public to speak to city councilors about any issue.

Those community forums occurred at the end of meetings but often ran off track and became infiltrated by non-Vancouver residents, according to previous reporting by The Columbian.

In 2022, the city council voted to eliminate the community-forum segment of weekly meetings and replace them with four roundtable style community forums a year. (The city council recently decided to increase the frequency to monthly.)

At that 2022 meeting, Councilor Ty Stober noted none of the people who signed up for the community forum that day lived in Vancouver.

“Not that voices outside aren’t important, but we’re struggling to connect with our own residents, and that’s where I don’t know that we’re getting as much traction with our current format as what is possible,” he said before the vote.

Councilors Diana Perez and Bart Hansen voted against the change.

Hansen told The Columbian he’s concerned the city has missed out on hearing important information since the city tossed the weekly community forums. Sometimes, problems can’t wait for a community forum months away, he said.

An exception

At Monday’s city council meeting, almost a dozen people had signed up to speak about the same homeless camp. McEnerny-Ogle asked councilors whether they wanted to lift the rule and hear the residents speak.

Councilor Sarah Fox said council meetings are business meetings.

“When the public comes to speak to us, the reason we limit it to speaking about things on the agenda is to give us more information before we make decisions that are on the agenda,” she said.

Councilor Kim Harless said the council created the rule in 2022 because people abused community forums. The council has to get business done, she said, and people can speak at the now-monthly community forums.

“There are plenty of opportunities to engage, and this is probably the one time in a long time I’ve seen the room this full,” she said. “So those opportunities have been available.”

Councilors Perez and Hansen said they’d like to hear the residents. Perez questioned whether the council should reconsider its decision to take away weekly community forums.

“I would like to give them the opportunity but also for us to be mindful that we need to have the ability to have people be able to come back and speak to us,” she said.

The council ultimately decided to hear out the residents, but it made no plans to address the agenda restriction in the future.

Residents disappointed

At the city’s latest community forum in September, residents complained that city councilors were unreachable via email and phone. Unlike other public officials including state legislators, Vancouver city councilors do not have their direct contact information listed publicly, which McEnerny-Ogle said was due to an onslaught of spam email.

City spokesman Tim Becker said email addresses were removed from the city’s website in 2022 after an uptick in cybersecurity incidents.

At the forum, Vancouver residents Joe and Laurie Arndt said they’ve often unsuccessfully tried to reach city council members to ask about permitting.

“If you have a concern and it’s not on the agenda, it goes nowhere. Can’t talk about it at their meeting,” Joe Arndt said. “They never respond to you — ever.”

Ackman said he tried to talk about street issues at a community forum and was shut down by city council members.

“I don’t think the majority of them want to hear about something that they’ve pretty much made up their mind on,” he said.

Laurie Arndt suspects the rule might be to prevent people who spout conspiracy theories and go on nonsensical rants from hijacking meetings. She said she’s noticed more disruptions in city council meetings lately, despite the agenda rule because people creatively relate off-topic issues to the agenda.

“It’s not fair to penalize everybody,” she said.

Suggested alternatives

Vancouver resident Justin Wood said he was turned away from speaking at a Vancouver City Council meeting in October. He wanted to show city councilors the traffic that backed up toward his house in east Vancouver after street changes.

“There isn’t a really good forum for people to show up and address council and share grievances — legitimate grievances,” he said.

Wood gave an example of someone wanting a stop sign on a dangerous street.

“How would you do that in Vancouver? I don’t even know how you would start because you can’t go down and talk to your council about it,” he said.

Wood said he often attends Portland City Council meetings, which don’t require public comments to address the agenda. Instead, people sign up for limited spots, and those who don’t sign up in time are invited to speak at the next meeting.

Having to wait two or three weeks to speak may deter those who don’t have a legitimate grievance to share, he said. Wood said he’d like to see something similar in Vancouver.

“Portland’s got a much bigger city council and a lot more people, and they figure out how to do it. So, I don’t know why we can’t in Vancouver,” he said.

The city’s next community forum is 6:30 to 8 p.m. Monday at Evergreen Public Schools Administrative Service Center, 13413 N.E. LeRoy Haagen Memorial Drive.