By JOEL PHELPS | arkadelphian.com
Clark County justices of the peace made much ado about an ordinance regulating citizen comment during their meetings.
In a two-hour meeting held Monday, May 13, 2024, justices spent some 45 minutes discussing the proposed ordinance, which, until the meeting, was up for adoption (worry not: it shan’t take 45 minutes to read this summary).
Justice Jenna Scott, who proposed the ordinance, ultimately withdrew her motion to hear its third and final reading.
In a nutshell, Scott’s ordinance limited the number of citizens allowed to address the Quorum Court but gave them an opportunity to engage in discussion — given that they found a justice willing to sponsor their involvement in the discussion within 24 hours of the meeting’s agenda being published to either the county’s website or sent to the list of people who receive the agenda in their email (we’re out of breath just typing that sentence).
Until Monday the ordinance had gone without much resistance — aside from pushback and dissenting votes from longtime Justice Albert Neal. During the May meeting, however, Scott’s ordinance drew questions from the majority of her legislative peers.
It was Neal who began arguing the case against the ordinance, saying as he had at previous meetings that it adds unnecessary obstacles for citizens wishing to address the court. Justices Jimmy King, Zach Bledsoe and Michael Ankton all questioned language contained within the ordinance.
Even county Judge Troy Tucker, who presides over the meetings but does not vote, chimed in on the conversation. Tucker’s concern was that, as it was written, the ordinance allowed only arguments for or against an agenda topic — not for citizens who might be on the fence on or have questions about the issue.
Talks grew tedious, as at one point The Southern Standard publisher Joe May awoke himself with a snore. The other dozen or so citizens in attendance eventually began whispering and talking among themselves.
Toward the end of the discussion, Scott seemed flustered as, in lieu of taking the final steps of adopting the ordinance, she withdrew her motion to resubmit the ordinance with amended language prior to the June meeting. The move means that the ordinance — if Scott proposes it again — will be back at square one and will require three readings over the course of the same number of months.
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