Public attendance among changes for Wilkes-Barre City Council meetings

WILKES-BARRE — When City Council goes back to its split-session schedule next week, expect a few changes on how they’re conducted.

Emails from the public will no longer be accepted and neither will phone calls.

Who can speak, what they can talk about, when they can comment and for how long haven’t changed, however. People just must be present to say it.

“Everything will go back to normal,” said Council Chairman Tony Brooks Wednesday.

The split schedule – work session on Tuesday followed by the regular meeting with voting by Council on Thursday – will resume after they were combined last year as restrictions were placed on public gatherings in an effort to control the spread of the highly contagious and deadly novel coronavirus.

Capacity restrictions have been lifted and people who have been vaccinated do not have to wear masks inside City Hall.

The new schedule is available on the city’s web site, wilkes-barre.city, under the City Council section.

“Everything is exactly the same prior to the pandemic,” Brooks said of the ground rules.

There is no opportunity for the public to ask questions or comment during the non-voting work session. It’s open to the public, but Council does most of the talking; sometimes inviting guests to present their projects or proposals on the agenda for the upcoming regular meeting.

The next work session is scheduled for 6 p.m. on June 15. The agenda has already been posted online. The regular meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on June 17.

The public has two opportunities to comment during the regular meeting. People can talk about items on the agenda before council votes on them. Following the vote, the floor opens for a public discussion period.

But in order to address Council during the public discussion period speakers are required to complete a registration form and submit it to City Clerk Cathy Payne before the start of the meeting. Council allows each speaker 5 minutes.

Registration is not required to comment on agenda items before Council’s vote.

The regular meeting will be streamed on YouTube, but not in real time as has been the case when the public was not allowed in Council’s fourth-floor chambers at City Hall. It will be posted after the meeting ends.

People watch it on their own time, Brooks said, adding he often will “get a question a week later” after someone viewed the meeting.

Council will be in compliance with the state Sunshine Act regarding open meetings when it allows the public to attend and eliminates the other measures for participation it had in place.

But elsewhere in the state the opposite is taking place, said Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association in Harrisburg.

“What I’m hearing from other agencies is the additional means of public participation have increased public participation and that’s a good thing. Many have decided to keep them,” Melewsky said Thursday.

Even outside of the pandemic, people could not attend public meetings. Cutting back on making them more accessible is not only counterintuitive, but also problematic, Melewsky said.

Government functions best when it’s aided by active and informed citizens, Melewsky said.