SOUTHPORT — Aerosol spray, nearly hour long speeches, and neighborly disputes have all been part of recent public comment periods at the Southport Board of Aldermen meetings. Now, the aldermen are taking a step in the direction of restoring civility.
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On Monday, the aldermen voted 5 to 1 (Lowe Davis dissenting) to pass a new public comment policy. The policy does not have a time limit, as put forth in the original proposal, but it does prevent people from bringing in props to accompany their comments and discussing issues outside of the board of aldermen’s “jurisdiction.”
Southport has not had an official public comment policy, outside of the adoption of allotting time for public comment in general as required by the North Carolina General Assembly. The state requires municipalities to host one public comment section a month, and while it has already been standard practice for aldermen meetings, the policy codifies that both of the monthly aldermen meetings host public comment sections. People are also required to sign up to speak beforehand by contacting the city clerk’s office though this is already the standard for discussion.
Alderman Robert Carroll brought it forth with the goal to encourage “decorum.” In the past, Carroll said people have engaged in topics either genuinely impossible for board members to do anything about, like the war in Ukraine, or broached items unrelated to the aldermen, like neighborly disputes.
“This comes out of a conversation that started in September,” Carroll further explained to Port City Daily. “Someone actually stood up and publicly attacked Tish — Anita — Hatem, who is not an elected official, is not running for an elected office. We don’t want to use the board of aldermen’s meeting to have discussions about things that are outside of our purview.”
Carroll was referring to the Sept. 11 meeting, where John Langley called out Hatem for yelling at him, his wife, and his brother for trespassing on their alleyway. The comment was one of the inciting incidents in a dispute over ownership of the alleyway involving the city and former mayor and current candidate Joe Pat Hatem, Anita’s husband. Carroll has been outspoken about the alderman’s actions in the situation, headed by current mayor and candidate Rich Alt, being politically motivated.
The prohibition of props, though, goes back to a meeting where Sue Hodgin, former chair of the Southport Planning Board, spoke for 45 minutes. She brought in a can of air freshener to emphasize her claim that her reappointment rejection “didn’t pass the sniff test” and she was being iced out from further planning board participation for being outspoken against aldermen decisions.
The prop prohibition was added to the policy Monday by Alderman Rebecca Kelley’s suggestion to limit “scenting or loud noises.” Kelley was a part of the planning board appointee interview panel, along with Alderman Frank Lai, that chose not to re-appoint Hodgin.
Carroll said he wasn’t sure why Southport didn’t have a public comment policy, but he supposed there haven’t been a lot of issues like there have been this past year. The first time he brought it up was at the Oct. 9 alderman meeting, and from there, he stated he got little-to-no feedback from other board members about changes made to what he proposed. Only Kelley responded to him, and she was originally in favor of adding time constraints, which originally was going to be 3 minutes for an individual and 8 minutes for a spokesperson, as per county standards.
Carroll cut them Monday, he said, as to not infringe upon residents’ speech: “I want to hear everybody’s voice — and I want to hear all of it.”
Many municipalities have time constraints on speakers during public comment periods, including in Brunswick County. The county appoints 3 minutes for individuals and 8 minutes for anyone acting as a spokesperson for a group of people. In the end, the idea to include a time constraint was nixed.
Only Alderman Davis was against the policy’s passing, citing the need for the public to comment on it. She wanted to wait until the Nov. 13 aldermen meeting to vote on it, but no one favored it, seeing no point in delaying the vote further.
Carroll argued the aldermen informed the public on it a month ago, when he first broached the topic in the October meeting. The agenda was also posted online last week and the policy proposal was not an added item, but rather in the original agenda, Carroll added.
“I don’t know who would show up Thursday opposed to what we passed,” he said. “Nobody showed up today. What’s going to change between now and our Thursday meeting?”
Davis stated she did not realize they would be voting on the topic this week and asked if there was any urgency to get it done.
“We have got to do the people’s business,” Carroll urged in response at Monday’s meeting. “Let’s keep it moving. Government runs slow enough.”
Davis emphasized again to Port City Daily that the board could have waited.
“We had not taken any input on this,” she said. “Robert Carroll said he had asked the public to give input. I did not see that anywhere. It just showed up on the agenda.”
Davis commented that the impact of the public comment policy was on the public, and yet they had not heard anyone address them publicly on the issue. Carroll said that she voted against anything she thought infringed upon free speech.
“I don’t think this does at all,” he defended, and part of why he suggested removing the time limit from the policy altogether.
Carroll said he hoped this new policy would help the community turn over a new leaf. He commented in the last few years, behaviors have “gotten nasty.”
“I have literally had people, who I considered friends, simply because I disagreed with an opinion, call me an ass. I get called the biggest liar in the room,” Carroll said. “I’m tired of that type of behavior. We’re adults. We’re better than that.”
He wanted the new policy to usher in more respect, not just for the board, but also within the community.
“If we have disagreements with our neighbors, let’s work those out in a private setting,” Carroll said. “If it’s within the city’s jurisdiction, then leave the personalities out of it.”
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