Joining the Planning and Zoning Commission, Longmont City Council will officially no longer hear testimony on certain topics until their public hearing.
On Tuesday, council unanimously approved the second reading of an amendment to their rules of procedures giving them authority to prohibit public comment that concern upcoming quasi-judicial matters. The matter passed with little comment, aside from Councilmembers Tim Waters, who noted he preferred to vote on procedure change this way, and Sean McCoy, who noted his reluctance to support the change.
“I don’t want it to stifle that act of discussion from the public,” he said.
The procedure amendment passed unanimously.
The change is nearly identical to the one approved by the Longmont Planning and Zoning Commission last month. Both bodies sometimes act in a manner similar to a judge, known as a quasi-judicial proceeding, which requires that the planning commission not consider any evidence received outside the record of the proceeding. These are also known as ex parte communications.
This only applies to quasi-judicial matters, things like preliminary plat applications, rezoning applications, conditional use applications and variance applications. Other topics like annexation or the city’s comprehensive plan are policy-setting in nature and not subject to the due process protections, so the public can comment on them at any time.
Additionally, the due process protections come into place after the developer has submitted a complete application to the city. If it hasn’t, the public is still able to speak on the topic to council or the planning commission.
Community members who do want to speak on topics not allowed during public comment can still submit written comments to the city that will be included in the public hearing packet, or attend the public hearing and share their comments then.
