CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Item #17, on Corpus Christi’s City Council agenda caused a lot of frustration for the public and officials.
"I move to amend the motion to strike out 75 minutes and insert 60 minutes between 12 o'clock to 1 o'clock,” Council member Carolyn Vaughn said.
Vaughn, an At-large representative on City Council, requested this to be put on the agenda.
"We spend three hours at public comment, and it might surprise you to know we are the only entity that doesn't have a timeline,” Vaughn said.
Currently, each public commenter is allowed up to three minutes and each non-resident has one minute.
"Please vote no on item #17 and vote yes to hear from the public who elected you,” resident John Webber said.
The public voiced their opinion on the subject of changing the time they have to address the city council.
"We could run a more efficient meeting if we actually followed Robert's Rules of Order,” resident Conor Rice said.
Robert's Rules of Order is essentially a guide for conducting meetings and making decisions. Rice said he found 27 violations of Robert's Rules of Order alone.
Vaughn told KRIS 6 News this needs to stop.
"We got to get some order in here, we got to run a business meeting and it has not been like that. It's total chaos,” Vaughn said.
The motion to change the public comment time to 60 minutes did not pass and even Gil Hernandez' amendment to that request didn't go.
"We need to do something,” Vaughn said. “I won't tell you I won't bring it back because I probably will eventually if this continues."
Improving meetings is something Mayor Paulette Guajardo agreed with.
"I think the majority of the council their intent was not to take away speaking time from the public but it's to make meetings more efficient,” Guajardo said.
City Manager Peter Zanoni was also focused on how to bring order. He plans to review Robert’s Rules of Order and decorum of their monthly meetings.
