2015-08-10 NKCDP Statements form the Public and Subcommittee Reports

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Statements from the Public and Subcommittee Reports North Kohala CDP Action Committee Discussed and Approved 8/10/2015 Public Statements. The Sunshine Law has this to say about public input: (the chair added bold/italics) Must a board accept testimony at its meetings? Yes. Boards are required to accept testimony from the public, both oral and written, on any item listed on the meeting agenda. Boards can decline to accept public testimony that is unrelated to a matter listed on the agenda. May a board limit the length of each person's oral testimony offered at its meetings? Yes. Boards are authorized to adopt rules regarding oral testimony, including, among other things, rules setting limits on the amount of time that a member of the public may testify. For instance, a council could adopt rules limiting each person's oral testimony to three minutes. Boards also are not required to accept oral testimony unrelated to items on the agenda for the meeting. This suggests that we may adopt our own rules for time limits and accepting testimony unrelated to Agenda items. • Statements from the public shall be solicited at the beginning and end of each meeting. • Statements from the public should be concise and organized. They should therefore be limited to three minutes for each subject. The chair shall generally curtail statements beyond this point. • The chair may exert some discretion on enforcing these procedures if (s)he deems some statement is particularly relevant to an existing or future AC strategy. • Any public comments on non -agenda items may be heard, but the Sunshine Law expressly forbids any discussion of non -agenda topics. If a discussion is merited the item shall be placed on the next meeting agenda. • Any AC member may ask the chair to enforce the first two guidelines if they consider a statement (and/or ensuing discussion) to run overly long or be off -topic. • During later meeting proceedings an AC member may ask a member of the public to submit additional information in case there are questions. However, AC members shall not get into a discussion with the testifier during pubic testimony. Subcommittee Reports. • Subcommittee reports shall be sent in to our Planning rep for distribution to all AC members as soon as possible after a subcommittee meeting (at least five days before each AC meeting). Oral subcommittee reports at AC meetings should be a brief summary of the written report and limited to five minutes or less. Reports should be limited to the CDP Strategies assigned them: official subcommittee proceedings, decisions, written documents, immediate plans/directions, and requests to the AC (generally in the form of a motion). Oral reports should concentrate on results. They may solicit input from AC members, but should refrain from mentioning non -strategy items and premature speculation or personal opinions.