County Attorney public participation rules of decorum

59:33I do have something. Um I know it's my first meeting. Um but at the I want I'm already starting to make some changes here. So I want to talk to you about revising your rules for public participation and public hearings. I did email you a copy of these rules, um, but I'm gonna pass them out to you again.

59:54Strike me.

59:58That's a good So as you know, um historically the county attorney has read the zoning procedures before the public hearing. Um I've always thought that really wasn't the greatest practice because You know, telling the public and telling applicants the procedures two minutes before the hearing starts, I didn't think was the greatest practice. I really think these should be telling the public and applicants the procedures well before that. So Mike, I like to get these rules published with

1:00:28the published agenda. Actually we could include a link to them on the published agenda. And then hopefully put a hard copy in the boardroom so that the public and applicants know what the rules are in advance and not right before the public hearing. That's the first thing. The second thing is that the rules that were being read out loud didn't clearly distinguish between quasijudicial items on the board's agenda and legislative items. So for example For quasi-judicial items, you have to swear in witnesses. They're entitled to

1:00:58rebuttal, cross-examination. That's not true for legislative items. And so I felt like the rules needed to be revised to clearly distinguish between quasi judicial and legislative items. But probably the most important thing is that your current rules of procedure do not have what I would call rules of decorum. So for example, your rules don't address things like that you've said out loud but you don't have any written rules to address them, things like no clapping. Okay. You said no clapping, but But

1:01:29you don't have anything in your written rules that actually say no clapping or no political campaigning. Or don't put ha you know, don't have signs on sticks, or don't put obscene materials in your PowerPoints, or don't put slanderous materials in your PowerPoints. So There's a lot of things that you probably don't want to occur in your boardrooms, but you don't have any written rules that actually say not to do these things.

1:01:52How about cameras in your face? Well

1:01:55before we've had that here

1:01:56in

1:01:56a short. So so now Penellas County has rules of decorum and so I've drafted some draft rules that are modeled after Pinellas County's Rules of Decorum. I think they're they're pretty good. Um the one rule that I did not that I added here that is not in Pinellas County's rules is Rule 14, and that deals with animals in the boardroom. Um the reason I had to add that rule is because we actually had a re a recent neighborhood meeting And Pasco where

1:02:27um some objecting neighbors actually attempted to ride their horses into the neighborhood meeting. Um so so I added that that's a Pasco specific rule um that was added. Must have

1:02:39been your meeting ugly.

1:02:41Um

1:02:43get

1:02:43him

1:02:43upstairs here.

1:02:44Um I'm not sure you could get a horse into this boardroom, but but I think I thought it was appropriate to add a rule to address that. Um now the clerk did give me a couple of comments on some rules that I might need to add to this that I will incorporate. But my hope is to get these rules adopted by resolution of the board. I was hoping to get them adopted at your next meeting because we do have a couple controversial items that are coming to you at your next meeting. We have a agricultural enclave

1:03:15that is at your next meeting. I think the de the Denton M PUD is coming to you at your next meeting. So I'm hopeful to I with your permission I'd like to get these published for your next meeting and adopted at your next meeting uh unless you have some comments to them that you want to give to me. But um

1:03:35We we should do that at the first part of the meeting.

1:03:38Yeah, that would be my I'd I'd put them I'd get have them adopted by resolution at the first at I think on your morning agenda. But I'd like your permission to go ahead and put a link to them on your on your 25th agenda so that the public is aware that these are the rules that they're operating under for that agenda.

1:03:58Okay.

1:03:58Unless you see some issue with them that I need to fix. The clerk did bring my my attention to one minor issue that I need to fix, but that's a fairly minor issue that I can easily fix.

1:04:09I think if a board member's got any issues with any of them, we should let you know right away. You can look to make those changes if they sound acceptable to you. Just write them there. But go go ahead with it, get it ready, get it published so that it's just a simple adoption ev even before we even start our public hearing. We can adopt them then. But you can have the word out that it's proposed to be adopted at the next board meeting.

1:04:30That would be my goal. I I just think th the other issue that you're gonna have is if we don't have these written rules soon, I think at some point you're gonna need to remove somebody from your boardroom for violating these kinds of behaviors. And if you don't have written rules, you're gonna have a legal problem when you remove them from the boardroom. There was a There's a recent case actually where the tax collector won his lawsuit When he had to have somebody removed from the tax collector's office. And I think the reason he won his lawsuit is because he had clear written policies that just that prohibited the behavior

1:05:00that he that he had the person removed because of that policy. So I think you need to have these rules in place if you're gonna have somebody removed from your boardroom for violence.

1:05:12Okay. Anything else, Ms. County Attorney?

1:05:15No, that was all I had.