Central ND News

The Mandan City Commission has adopted a public comment policy during its July 1 meeting, in compliance with recent legislation enacted by the North Dakota Legislative Assembly.

"We're also suggesting a total of 30 minutes for that public comment period, and those can be adjusted however, the Commission wishes to adopt that policy. It doesn't mean that we have to open up the public comment period and sit here for 30 minutes waiting for someone from the public," said City Administrator Jim Neubauer, according to the meeting video.

Neubauer said that the city used the North Dakota League of Cities model policy as a basis to draft Mandan's public comment policy. He mentioned that commissioners might consider setting a time limit per speaker, proposing a three-minute limit. Both this and the total 30-minute duration for public comments could be adjusted at the commissioners' discretion. Neubauer anticipated that if no one was present to speak, the mayor could make several calls for comments near the start of the meeting before ending the public comment period.

The city administrator noted that commissioners could allow the mayor to suspend these time limits, either for an individual speaker's three-minute limit or for the overall 30-minute comment period. This decision would be left to either the mayor's or commissioners' discretion.

Neubauer also indicated that written comments should be submitted at least 24 hours before meetings to ensure distribution to commissioners during meetings. Any submissions made later would be provided afterward. Comments will be limited to agenda items from both previous and current meetings. The commissioners adopted this policy as presented, in accordance with legislation requiring its adoption by Mandan's August 1 commission meeting.