Long Beach residents are deeply engaged with their city government. That is not a problem to be managed. It is a civic asset to be protected.
by Gregory L. Johnson – Beach City Perspective
Most of my professional life in media has required me to be observant of civic engagement. I have watched elected officials come and go. I have watched communities organize, protest, advocate, demand change and occasionally force government to listen when it would have preferred not to. And over the years, I have watched municipalities throughout Los Angeles County wrestle with one particularly persistent challenge: What do you do with public comment?
Let’s acknowledge the obvious. Public comment can be a bee in the Council’s collar. It can be repetitive. It can be uncomfortable. Speakers can be angry, passionate and occasionally difficult. People don’t always stay on message. Meetings can run long while elected officials and city staff still have a mountain of business to conduct. So I understand the desire for efficiency. But there is another side to this conversation.
I’ve Seen This Before
Inglewood provides an interesting example. For years, the city wrestled with the timing of its City Council meetings. By 2015, Inglewood was alternating between afternoon and evening meetings. That year, the City Council voted to eliminate the evening meetings and conduct its regular meetings in the afternoon. City officials cited efficiency and consistency among the reasons for the change. Residents, however, expressed concern that holding meetings during the workday would make it more difficult for working people to attend and participate.
I remember that debate. And it has stayed with me because it illustrates something much larger than Inglewood.
Whenever government changes the time, place, manner or amount of opportunity the public has to address its elected representatives, people pay attention.
Even when the stated objective is efficiency, government must remain sensitive to how procedural changes affect access—and how those changes are perceived by the people being governed. Which brings me back home to Long Beach.
Long Beach Is Paying Attention
Public comment is again before the Long Beach City Council. Agenda Item 29 on the October 6 City Council agenda proposes amendments to the Rules of the Council, including procedures affecting public comment. This may sound like procedural City Hall business. It isn’t.
It touches one of the most fundamental relationships in representative government: the relationship between the governed and those we elect to govern. Long Beach residents take that relationship seriously.
People watch our City Council meetings. They study the agenda. They organize around issues. They come downtown. They sit through presentations and proclamations. Sometimes they wait for hours for their opportunity to approach that microphone. I’ve often joked that if Nielsen ever measured Tuesday-night viewing specifically in Long Beach, the City Council meeting might rank surprisingly high. I don’t have the data to prove that. But anyone who follows civic affairs in this city understands the larger point: Long Beach pays attention. And that should be celebrated.
There are cities across America desperately trying to figure out how to get residents interested in local government. Long Beach already has their attention. Why would we want to discourage it?
It Always Comes Down to the People
The relationship between elected officials and citizens is something we occasionally need to remind ourselves about.
We don’t work for the candidates we elect. They work for us.
The American democratic ideal is government of the people, by the people and for the people. Those words are easy to quote. The more difficult task is creating governmental institutions that actually live by them. I have been witness to many civic protests and advocacy efforts over the years, and the one constant I have taken away from those life experiences is this: It always, always, always comes down to the people.
Institutions matter. Government matters. Elected leadership matters. But ultimately, democracy derives its legitimacy and its power from the people themselves. And at the municipal level, one of the most tangible expressions of that relationship is extraordinarily simple. A microphone.
That Microphone Represents Access
For many residents, those few minutes during public comment may be the only opportunity they ever have to directly address the Mayor and all nine members of the City Council at the same time.
Think about that. Most people don’t have a lobbyist. They don’t have a political consultant. They aren’t major campaign donors. They don’t run a large institution. They don’t have the Mayor’s cellphone number. They can’t necessarily schedule a private meeting with their Councilmember. But they can walk into City Hall, wait their turn, approach that microphone and say publicly and on the record: “This is what I think my government needs to hear.”
That microphone therefore represents something much larger than whether somebody gets three minutes, two minutes or one minute. It represents access. And we should be extremely careful about diminishing it.
Efficiency Is Not Democracy’s Highest Value
I support reasonable rules. I support civility. I support technology that expands participation. I support written and remote public comment. And I certainly support procedures that allow the City Council to conduct the people’s business efficiently. But efficiency cannot become the overriding principle of democracy.
Democracy is sometimes inefficient. Listening takes time. Disagreement takes time. Allowing somebody with whom you profoundly disagree to stand at a microphone and criticize your decisions takes time. That’s part of the deal.
The fundamental question shouldn’t simply be: How can we make City Council meetings shorter?
The better question is: How can we make democracy work better while still conducting the City’s business effectively?
Those are not competing objectives. There should be room for both.
Protect the Microphone
Public comment will sometimes irritate elected officials. Some speakers will grandstand. Some will repeat themselves. Some will say things Councilmembers would rather not hear. But occasionally that person standing at the microphone will identify something government missed. Occasionally an uncomfortable voice will represent a community that hasn’t been heard. Occasionally persistent public comment will become advocacy. And occasionally advocacy becomes policy.
That is why we have to be very careful whenever government begins adjusting the mechanisms through which citizens speak to power.
An engaged Long Beach is not a problem to be solved. It is an extraordinary civic asset. So streamline where appropriate. Modernize where necessary. Create reasonable rules. Conduct the people’s business. But remember whose business it is.
The people’s. Power to the People.
The inconvenience of listening to the public is part of the responsibility of public service. So as Long Beach considers the future of public comment, my message is simple: Protect the microphone. Protect public participation. And celebrate the fact that the people of Long Beach still care enough about their government to show up and use it.
Gregory L. Johnson is Managing Director of Hannibal Media Group and a longtime media, arts and cultural advocate. He previously served on the Board of Directors of the Arts Council for Long Beach, including two terms as Board President.
Beach City Perspective