Barrow Journal

The Statham City Council left its procedures for individuals to speak to the council “as is” after a couple of months of talking about more restrictions.
The council debated changes to its procedures and considered an ordinance drafted by city attorney Thomas Mitchell before deciding to “leave it alone,” as council member Dwight McCormic said.
Mayor Robert Bridges said at the work session last week the council should leave the procedures as they are. He repeated that when the discussion started Tuesday.
Council member Perry Barton had suggested stricter regulation of public comments. He said the Barrow County Board of Commissioners allows only two minutes for an individual to speak and only on an item on the agenda.
Statham requires individuals who want to be on the council agenda to sign up, with the subject of their comments, by noon Thursday before a Tuesday meeting. Those people get five minutes to speak to council.
Barton had suggested limiting speakers to items on the agenda. He said individuals could talk to council members and ask that a topic be put on the agenda.
The council has had regular comments for months about the city’s police department, the council members’ actions, conditions of road, quality of the city water and the proposed ethics board. Several council meetings have become rowdy as people commented from the audience without being recognized. One woman, Catherine Corkren, was banned from city property, including city hall, in August.
Corkren had been one of the regular attendees at council meetings and one of the regular speakers. She also has been involved in multiple lawsuits with the city.
Mitchell noted he had not heard a consensus from council about the total number of minutes for citizen comment and about whether that total is for each item or the meeting.
He also said a proposed change would allow people to sign up to speak when they arrive at a meeting.
His proposed ordinance gave preference to speakers who lived, owned property or ran a business in Statham.
McCormic, Eddie Jackson and Bridges said the five-minute limit is OK with them.
At the work session, Barton said, “We have had problems with people talking on subjects that didn’t need to be talked on.”
He repeated his contention that the individuals should raise issues with individual council members, not at the public meetings.
For more on Tuesday's meeting, see the Oct. 17 edition of the Barrow News-Journal.