Tacoma council moves to tame the sometimes-raucous community forum
The city of Tacoma might soon alter the format of a twice-monthly opportunity for residents to speak to council members. Some say the changes aren’t the right idea.
The twice-monthly comment period is called “community forum” and typically takes place during regularly scheduled City Council meetings. It’s an opportunity for Tacoma residents to show up in person or remotely to discuss issues in front of city leaders that aren’t directly related to that meeting’s agenda – a restriction placed on the usual public comment period at weekly council meetings.
The City Council is pursuing an effort to change the format in response to frustration from council members and some community-forum speakers over inefficiency. The city’s Operational Strategy and Administrative Committee has discussed a proposal to hold community forum less frequently but with more opportunity for dialogue and follow-up.
“The biggest frustration that everyone has had, including community members, about the current community forum setup is that it’s basically like an HOA meeting or social media, in that largely, in practice, it ends up being an echo chamber for a vocal group, rather than a reflection of actual community needs,” Mayor Anders Ibsen told The News Tribune.
Under the proposed format, community forum would take place five times a year, once in each of Tacoma’s neighborhood council districts. The events would take place in schools or other spaces that could accommodate larger crowds, with translation services and catering from local businesses.
The events would include a presentation on the trends in issues reported to 311 and updates on the city’s efforts to respond to them, a “town hall-style conversation” and discussion led by that district’s council member. City staff would give residents a way to continue reporting issues and stay in touch, according to the proposal. The new format also wouldn’t allow for virtual participation.
“The goal is relevance and results. That’s what it comes down to,” Ibsen said. “Our meetings are just like everything else that we do as a city — they have to serve the bottom line, which is how we can make Tacoma more livable for people.”
The city has held community forum, or some version of it, since 1993, according to the city. Back then it took place once a month for a maximum of 30 minutes, and no individual speaker could speak for longer than 10 minutes. It wasn’t until 2017 that the council took on an effort to reimagine community forum, and the process and reasoning was identical to today’s.
According to News Tribune archives, city leaders at the time said it was an unproductive forum that often consisted of personal attacks and vitriol. A proposal for an alternative was similar to today’s: fewer forums that took place in neighborhood council districts instead of council chambers.
It didn’t get the support it needed, and by June 2018, the council voted to continue community forum on its regular schedule at council chambers.
Ibsen said the rest of the City Council will likely discuss and potentially revise the latest proposal at a future study session, and he anticipates the council would finalize the new format by late spring or early summer. He said the city hasn’t finalized what the new proposal might cost, but it would likely be less than the cost of his State of the City address – which city spokesperson Maria Lee said was around $11,777.75.
Some people don’t want change
Not everyone agrees that the current format needs to be reimagined. Gemini Gnull, a member of the Climate Alliance of the South Sound and a frequent attendee at City Council meetings, said the current format is more accessible than the alternative because it happens more frequently at the same location and allows for virtual attendance.
“The thing about community forum that’s so accessible is that it’s consistent and that we know where and when it’s going to be, and that we can join from when and where we are,” Gnull told The News Tribune. “So even if I am stuck at work, I can still take a break and tune in.”
The bigger issue, she said, is not the format of community forum but what she described as the city’s failure to act on commenters’ demands. Even if the council changed the format, it wouldn’t change that the Climate Alliance of the South Sound is unhappy with, for example, the city’s council-manager form of government.
Community forum has in recent months been a source of conflict at council meetings, especially as some Tacoma residents have turned out to call for the city to take further action against federal immigration authorities. Speakers have at times ignored the time limit set for comments, yelled at council members and uttered profanities as council members sit on the dais unable to respond. At a February meeting, the council took a rare recess amid rowdiness from meeting attendees.
The council at its March 10 meeting voted to scale back community forum while the operational strategy and administrative committee works on finalizing an alternative. That decision proved controversial among speakers during public comment, and the council eventually voted to slightly expand the temporarily scaled-back version of community forum.
From March through May, community forum will happen once a month, but the council lifted the usual 60 minute time limit for community forum and speakers will have up to three minutes to speak instead of 90 seconds – unless the mayor or other presiding officer at the meeting opts to reduce the time as needed.
“The current format is about being manageable while we envision something better that actually works for people,” Ibsen said.
Gnull said she’d rather the council maintain community forum as it is with a few changes, like increasing the amount of time each speaker has and lifting rules that restrict attendees from clapping and cheering.
“What they are undermining is our collective visibility,” she said. “What they’re undermining is our ability to see each other and our ability to see how unpopular the council’s ideas are.”
Some speakers at the March 10 council meeting said the changes constitute an attack on free speech, which Ibsen rejected.
“Legally, that’s not correct, because having free speech also means that we can have reasonable parameters on time, place and manner,” he said. “We’re not saying that certain content is better or worse than others. What we’re saying is that the current system is not working for people.”
