Dear Mayor DePauli and Gallup City Councilors,
As someone who has stepped up to serve in public office, I hope that you can join us in celebrating the fact that this community has robust civic engagement.
For that reason, I am writing to express my opposition to Resolution No. R2026-27; Amending the Rules and Procedures Regarding City Council Meetings and Agendas. This resolution requires that anyone who doesn’t register a full hour ahead of the meeting will be denied the right to speak. The requirements that are proposed are a direct impediment to democracy, and antithetical to the transparency that we expect and appreciate from our city council.
Public comment is an important part of city council meetings across the state. It is unusual to require pre-registration, or to pre-conditionally approve comment before city council. I have read the rules for several other cities. Farmington, Carlsbad, Los Lunas, Edgewood, and Silver City do not require signup. Alamogordo and Grants do require signup, but don’t require this in advance of the meeting. None of them require the procedural rules on non-agenda items put forth in the resolution.
Larger cities (Albuquerque and Rio Rancho) do require signup in advance, but these are significantly larger cities and these appear to be intended to facilitate equity and smooth proceedings, which is not necessary in our small town.
Public comment is important, and doesn’t impede city council meetings. In the last three months, even when as much as 50 citizens have attended because of their concerns related to urgent civic matters, including data centers or proposed plans to bring in the National Guard, comment on non-agenda items has not exceeded 30 minutes (and is usually closer to 10-15 minutes). The tone of conversation has overall been, to our view, benign: no one has exceeded their allotted time, shouted, or been disrespectful.
Public comment has served as an important forum for citizens, with very little evidence of other political candidates taking advantage of the time for free press. Passing this resolution with the reasoning that it prevents political grandstanding doesn’t solve a problem, and rather quite unnecessarily restricts citizen input.
I have observed political candidates for other elections coming to present at city council, but none of these individuals have taken more than their allotted two minutes, and I have not observed significant press resulting from these speeches. When candidates come from the Navajo Nation to speak on their candidacy, they came as representatives from a sovereign nation and don’t appear to violate rules of conduct.
Furthermore, elected officials do come to present on non-agenda items and are allowed to speak even when they are up for election.
Citizens’ ability to comment on non-agenda items is important to democracy. City council impacts our lives in ways that are not present on the agenda and I urge you to preserve citizens’ ability to continue to comment at council meetings. There is a marked difference between a private meeting with a city council member and presenting at city council meetings where comments go on public record and are presented to the council as a body. I also have the experience of not being able to meet with our councilors or the Mayor: I am conscious that our councilors are human and limited in their time.
I am asking the mayor and the city council not to pass this resolution. Our community wants to preserve good communication with our government, and trust that you as our leaders want the same.
Sincerely,
Connie Liu, MD/PhD (OBGYN, Gallup Community Health)
