The Brown County Area Plan Commission has instituted new procedures for public hearings in an effort to make them more “orderly.”

The Nashville Town Council has operated under new procedures as well since July.

Jane Gore, who’s president of the town council and also on the APC, and Carol Bowden, who’s president of the APC, both attended a program called the “Nitty Gritty Work of Plan Commissions and BZAs” in June, and meeting procedures were a topic discussed there.

The APC’s new procedures will only apply at public hearings, when the board has a petition that it needs to discuss about a specific project so members can send a recommendation on to the county commissioners or town council for a final vote. Public hearings are required to be advertised in the newspaper’s legal notices.

Public hearings are different than regular meetings of the APC. A meeting is anytime a majority of the board gets together to talk about public business. A public hearing occurs during a meeting, but it is just a part of the meeting.

The APC voted last month to add the following to the code of conduct for public hearings:

• People wishing for an opportunity to speak about the petition will sign in.
• The president or representative will state when the public comment session is open.
• When members of the public speak at the microphone, they will state their name and their comment for or against the petition. All comments will be addressed to the board (not to members of the audience) and only comments about the petition will be accepted.
• The time limit for a speaker will be 3 minutes for an individual and 5 minutes for a representative of a group, unless otherwise permitted by the president or another representative.
• Speakers will have no side conversations, make no personal attacks and no repetitive/irrelevant comments. The speaker’s time may be terminated if the rules are violated.
• The president or representative will state when the public comment session is closed. The board will then discuss the petition’s merits.
• Board members will make a motion in favor of or against the petition, or make no recommendation.
• A roll-call vote will be taken.

The format will be the petitioner speaking first presenting facts and arguments in support of the case, followed by those who wish to speak in favor, then those who oppose, then the petitioner again to offer rebuttal.

The APC spent an hour discussing how to word the rule changes, and details such as whether people would be allowed to come up and speak a second time if they thought of more they’d like to say. The consensus was that nothing in those procedures says someone is limited to one turn at the mic, but the intent is to allow everyone who wants to speak to speak, as long as they are following the rules.

“I want a better process and a defined process that is here where people can see it and read it and not say, ‘You’re making up the rules as you go along.’ ‘No, I’m not; here you go,’” Bowden said.

At the July town council meeting, Gore announced the following procedures would be used from that meeting forward:

• If you wish to speak from the audience, think about what questions you have and what you want to say before you start speaking. On each topic, the time limit is 3 minutes.
• No discussion should occur between audience members; present all questions and comments to the council.
• One person should speak at a time.
• For town council members, “every member should be able to have their say, but see if we can move that forward and take action, votes if that requires,” Gore said.

“One other thing would be that this board, we are elected officials, and even though it might look easy to be up here, it’s not really that easy, and I think we all deserve respect,” Gore said. “In most cases, we do get that, and we appreciate that.”