NORTHAMPTON — Legislative debate rarely results in changes of heart. But that’s precisely what appears to have happened at Thursday’s meeting of the City Council, when all three co-sponsors of an order that would have changed the rules around decorum at the council chose to vote the order down.
The vote was 8-0, with Ward 5 Councilor David Murphy absent.
The order contained changes designed to involve the council’s committees more in legislation, and to set up meetings twice a year with the mayor so that the council could go over its legislative priorities. However, the issue that caused debate over the order to flare up was a change to the council’s rules on decorum.
The proposed change would have added the following section to the rules: “Demonstrations from members of the public of approval or disapproval, or any actions that interfere with the ability of all in the Council Chambers to hear or see the council conducting its business, will be not be permitted.”
The proposal comes in the wake of a contentious debate over allowing additional municipal surveillance cameras downtown, in which attendees sometimes cheered, held up signs, snapped fingers and vocally expressed themselves outside of and during the public comment period.
The three co-sponsors of the resolution, Ward 3 Councilor James Nash, Ward 2 Councilor Dennis Bidwell and Ward 4 Councilor Gina-Louise Sciarra, all said it was motivated out of a desire to make it so the public could more easily see and hear council proceedings.
A number of people showed up at Thursday’s meeting to protest the proposed change. Many also chose to speak in the public comment period. A number of them asked that the microphone system be improved and that a less blocky podium be set up, as solutions to improve seeing and hearing.
The council’s committee on legislative matters gave the order a positive recommendation at its Monday meeting, but did so after deleting all meaningful alterations to council rules in the order, which amounted to the equivalent of a negative recommendation.
As such, City Council President Ryan O’Donnell allowed the full, unmodified order, to come to the floor of the council.
In the debate over the decorum portion of the order, Ward 6 Councilor Marianne LaBarge said she had never had a problem with the public until the recent debate over surveillance cameras, when people snapping their fingers interfered with her hearing aids. However, she said that this issue was solved when she approached three young women who had been snapping and told them that it affected her.
“They were very polite,” said LaBarge, who said that she’d had no other problems with the public’s conduct.
Bidwell said the proposed rules changes were introduced now because such changes are typically introduced at the beginning of a new council term.
Ward 7 Councilor Alisa Klein, however, asserted that the proposed changes were tied to the surveillance camera debate.
“I really take umbrage,” she said.
O’Donnell, however, said he felt his colleagues were motivated by the desire to not allow speech to be drowned out.
Still, O’Donnell said he opposed the change, saying the current bylaw provided the tools and authority for him to facilitate public debate as the presiding officer.
“I think what we have is good,” he said.
He also vowed to increase access to the chamber, saying he wanted to work with LaBarge and the disability commission to do so.
Councilor At-Large Bill Dwight said the optics of regulating decorum were not good.
“I’m more concerned about the message that we are imparting,” he said, adding that he did not think that imparting an unwelcoming message was the intention of the sponsors.
Dwight also spoke to the messiness of democracy, and said he had actually enjoyed how the surveillance camera debate had gone.
“I thought that rocked,” he said.
Bidwell said the lengthy conversation about the order had brought him to a point of comfort.
“I take the council president at his word, that he will use … his discretion to create an environment that really is welcoming of all views,” said Bidwell.
Bidwell said the same was true with the proposals for the council’s committee policy and the setting of its legislative priorities, and he was fine with sticking with the current rules.
Earlier in the decorum debate, Sciarra said she accepted legislative matters’ assertion that the new conduct language was unnecessary.
In saying that he would also be voting down the order, Nash thanked everyone who had shown up at the legislative matters committee.
“Referring things to committee is a good thing,” he said.
Earlier on in the meeting, Nash said that people try to find an equivalent to national struggles on the local level.
“We are not the enemy that’s going on at the national level,” he said.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.