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Without it, you make people who come to discuss their plans and projects "wait while there's an hour or more of public comment," Bingham, the chairman of the East Hempfield Township supervisors, said at Wednesday night's board meeting. "And I think we're doing them a disservice."
On the other hand, limiting how long people talk "sends the totally wrong message to the public … that we don't want to hear what they have to say," fellow Supervisor Heidi Wheaton said.
The East Hempfield supervisors are working on a plan to regulate public comment at their twice-monthly meetings — a plan that got them into a lengthy, comment-filled debate Wednesday.
The township has been beset by lengthy public debates on a wide range of issues the past several years, from municipal finances to a proposed heliport in a residential area.
The latest plan initially proposed setting a 15-minute limit for public comment on nonagenda items at the start of the meeting — with time left over for comments later, after the agenda items are addressed.
But supervisor Brett Miller questioned how people would like it if they had dinner reservations for 7:30 but were kept waiting until 9:30.
"I think most people don't mind five, 10 minutes," he said, but two hours is another story.
But Wheaton disagreed, saying, "Everybody's time is valuable. … Just because you're on the agenda" shouldn't give you priority over someone else.
Residents come "for a very good reason — that they do want to be heard," Wheaton said. "And it's our job as a board of supervisors to make sure they're heard."
But Bingham took issue with Wheaton's position.
"No one's saying they won't listen," he said. It's just that people are "paying engineers, solicitors and others a good bit of money to be here, often by the minute."
Resident Karen Scepansky said she doesn't "know what the answer is."
"I've been to all these crazy meetings we've had in the past, and I don't know what the solution is," Scepansky told the board Wednesday. "But as a resident, I'd like to think that my opinion is valued — that you'd like to hear what I have to say."
Still, she said, it's hard to sit there while people talk about something that might be important to them but few others.
One partial solution may be found in cyberspace, township officials said.
Residents can contact the township at www.easthempfield.org if they have issues to be dealt with, and it could be taken care of without them even having to come to a meeting, Bingham said.
Nearly three years ago, East Hempfield established a three-minute limit as a guideline on public comments, saying at the time that a long public comment period is unfair to people who have an item on the agenda.
Lancaster City Council has a similar three-minute limit.
A check with several other suburban townships found none with a standard meeting-to-meeting time limit, although some officials said they establish one when there's a hearing or similar meeting regarding a specific issue.
No decisions were made during Wednesday's session, and board members said they'll keep working on a draft of the plan, but that it's not clear when the debate will resume.
E-mail: doconnor@lnpnews.com
