As long as I had Sheffie Kadane on the phone the other day talking about his swine flu scare, I asked him about his thoughts on the attempt by some as-yet unidentified council member(s) to muzzle open-microphone speakers at council meetings.
"We really haven’t had a chance to consider it yet," Kadane said, adding that he needed to know more about the plan before talking about it at length. "In terms of edging towards, if we have to do away with it, (let’s) do away with the evening open-microphone instead of the morning one so more people can make it."
Open-microphone speakers are citizens who sign up to addess the council during the morning and afternoon sessions. The proposed changes were pulled from the council agenda earlier this week, delaying a vote originally scheduled for Wednesday and setting the stage for a discussion at as-yet unknown future meeting.
I asked Kadane if the people apparently being targeted by the changes — a few people who speak frequently to council members about whatever seems to pop into their heads — were really wasting that much of the council’s time and needed to be reined in, given the rather chllling impact a couple of the changes would have on other citizens interested in addressing the council.
"It doesn’t bother me at all," Kadane said of the council’s existing policy. "I think we’ve got a pretty good plan the way we have it."
