On Tuesday, February 21, 2023, Saratoga Springs Mayor Kim announced his new schedule for City Council meetings. The meetings will now commence at 5PM not 7PM and the public comment period will be moved from the first item at Council meetings to the last.
This initiative is, according to the Mayor, to allow more public input.
Some of us are a little skeptical. It may have more to do with minimizing access by Black Lives Matter activists.
Unfortunately, it will affect more than the Black Lives Matter activists who have disrupted recent Council meetings. For one thing, it means that citizens who may want to address the Council about an agenda item will have to wait until the item has already been acted upon before they can address the Council.
I expect there will be some very unhappy people when they show up at a Council meeting to oppose something and discover they cannot address the Council until after the issue is voted on and done.
I corresponded with Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub about this plan, and he raised concerns over its adoption:
While I understand the idea behind changing the start time for the city council meeting, I think the feedback we received from constituents at the last council meeting was that we need to be more measured and thoughtful concerning community needs in making this decision. In particular, I’m concerned that the public comment start time will now be a moving target which will make it hard for individuals to know what time they need to be at the meeting in order to speak. In addition, for community members with jobs, beginning the meeting at 5PM will be problematic. I applaud the mayor’s decision to implement monthly community meetings to spend time working on solutions to significant community issues, I think we should perhaps reconsider the 5PM start time pending input from constituents before making any significant change.
I also think that placing the comment period at the end of the meeting is problematic. People commonly come to our meetings in order to try to affect proposed actions to be enacted at the meeting. Placing the public comment period at the end of the meeting would make their concerns moot.
Commissioner Jason Golub
Here is how the editorial in the Daily Gazette characterized it:
The move is designed purely to make the meetings less convenient for people to attend, to ensure fewer people are aware of the board’s actions. and to discourage public participation and criticism.
Daily Gazette Editorial February 23, 2023
The Mayor tried to put a better public spin on the plan by announcing that the time allowed for each public comment speaker would be expanded from two minutes to four minutes.
It was regrettable that when the Mayor announced these changes, there was no pushback from his colleagues on the Council. Hopefully, they will find their voices at the next meeting.
Saratoga Springs Politics 
Paul Vandenburgh has been hammering Kim on Talk 1300 daily over this and all the recent incompetence…tune in and call, great opportunity for the challengers. Paul and other callers were enthusiastic about Chris Mathiesen running this morning. 1300 AM, 98.7 FM or online Talk1300.
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Good to know. I will contact Paul Vandenburgh later next week.
Thanks,
Chris Mathiesen
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“For one thing, it means that citizens who may want to address the Council about an agenda item will have to wait until the item has already been acted upon before they can address the Council.”
This, to me, should be enough to kill this idea. It comes across as “we don’t care what you think, we’re going to vote how we want to vote.” Not every agenda item is talked about in multiple meetings, so there will undoubtedly be situations where residents learn about an item being voted on when the agenda comes out, and the first time they have any formal say on the topic is after a vote has already occurred. Perhaps a former elected official can weigh in, but I’m pretty sure prior Council members have had a vote swayed by a compelling point made by the public.
If the point of the proposed change is to avoid a situation where City business can’t be voted on because public comment goes on too long, then make and/or enforce whatever rules there are to ensure that doesn’t happen. Otherwise, this current plan comes off as undemocratic and against the purpose of the public comment period.
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As always, I appreciate Commissioner Golub’s calm and rational response.
I also share the same concerns, specifically when it comes to addressing an agenda item after it’s been voted on – totally antithetical to the entire purpose of the public comment period.
The Mayor should return to the previous meeting schedule and have the courage and leadership to manage public comments that may be challenging for him to hear.
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Well, behold the power of JK & this blog (and the Gazette) – Saratoga Today is reporting that the mayor has announced they are reverting back to a 7 PM start time with public comment at the beginning 👏🏻👏🏻
Let’s just put this on the long list of another unnecessary, self-created problem by Ron Kim..
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We should thank Mayor Kim for realizing that his proposal would not work well for the community and for having the courage to change his position. Apparently, he does pay attention to John Kauffmann’s blog.
Chris Mathiesen
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Thank him? Really Chris.
The only thing I will thank him for is resigning.
He has made a mess of everything from day one and is an embarrassment to our city, period.
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