DAVENPORT, Iowa — People in Davenport will soon have less time to voice their opinions at city council meetings.
Mayor Mike Matson announced the decision at a budget work session on Saturday, Feb. 3, which entailed three major rule changes:
- Public comment time per person will be cut from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
- Committee of the whole meetings won't have general public comment towards the end of the meeting. People will still be able to comment on individual agenda items.
- Public comment audio will be removed from livestreams and video recordings of the meetings.
At a Wednesday, Feb. 7 committee of the whole meeting, some community members were still upset by the policy.
"Although I am sure the city will argue it has a right to initiate this change, to me it is simply an attempt to silence all of us," resident Paul Vasquez said. "I view the proposed changes as censorship, and censorship is prohibited under our laws."
"This is a way to silence community speakers, community activists, of getting out what we'd like to see in our community, or bringing light to what the community does not know," resident LaCanna Dixon said.
The changes will take effect on Wednesday, Feb. 21 at a committee of the whole meeting.
Council members explained to News 8 that the mayor's decision was over concern about the city publishing defamatory public comments, and that doing so could create legal troubles. They also said the more reserved amount of public comment time is closer to the rules other cities in the area have.
After the Feb. 7 meeting, News 8's Jonathan Fong approached Mayor Matson for comment, who said the changes had been discussed at several public meetings and declined to speak further on the reason for them.