The city of South Lyon is beginning to discuss methods to make the public comment portion of their council meetings move more efficiently.

South Lyon’s City Council has decided to add the topic of public comment procedure to their next meeting’s agenda. Due to a large amount of participants speaking during the public comment portion of each city council meeting, the council agreed a more structured format would be beneficial. The current structure only allows speakers three minutes to address the council at the start of each meeting. The council briefly discussed methods that have proven to work well for other city councils such as adding a second allotted time for public comment and possibly extending the amount of minutes each speaker is allowed. Mayor Dan Pelchat told WHMI he is excited to see what the council comes up with as he hopes this will allow a more organized, structured, and efficient platform for public comment.

During the council’s discussion, Joyce Clohosey rushed the podium to directly address Council Member Mary Parisien. Mayor Pelchat did not let her speak and asked her to take a seat as this was not a portion of the meeting that was allowed for public comment. Clohosey did address the council earlier in the evening regarding an incident where Council Member Carl Richards asked her if she recently has a baby during an interview for a seat on the city council in January.

When speaking with WHMI, Pelchat confirmed even though the council will discuss new methods for the public to address the council, at no point will the public be allowed to interrupt them during discussion. (DF)