Council May Alter Public Comment System : Thousand Oaks: Proposal would reduce input to five minutes during audience portion. Officials hope to shorten meetings.

Mary Harris, Ekbal (Nick) Quidwai, John Ellis. To Thousand Oaks cable television viewers who watch City Council meetings regularly, their faces are almost as familiar as those of the council members.

Quidwai strides to the podium five or six times a meeting, a sheaf of newspaper clippings and city documents clutched in his hands, to expound on any number of subjects.

In a booming voice laced with a Southern accent, Ellis scolds officials at least four times a meeting for what he perceives to be inadequate disabled access in city-run buildings.

Harris often jumps up three or four times a meeting, rambling happily about what a good or bad job--depending on the issue--council members are doing.

For every speaker card submitted to the city clerk, residents are allowed to talk for five minutes, addressing each and every issue as it comes up on the agenda for council discussion if they want. Collectively, the three gadflies extend the already lengthy City Council meetings a full hour on a regular basis.

But they may not be able to speak quite as often if the council passes a resolution being put forth by Mayor Jaime Zukowski and Councilman Andy Fox for discussion Tuesday night.

The council members are proposing a new system for public comment to the council, which they say will make it easier for residents to address the council while limiting how long the seemingly interminable meetings drag on.

Instead of speaking on individual agenda items as they come up, residents would be limited to five minutes during the public comment period, which is now 30 minutes long but could be extended to an hour under the resolution. The speaking policy during public hearings, which gives an unlimited number of speakers five minutes each, would not be changed.

“The focus is on allowing and enabling the community to speak,” Fox said. “This brings us on-line with every other city in the county. It’s long overdue.”

In Simi Valley, residents can only speak during public hearings or the specified public comment time. Meetings there rarely go past 10 p.m. and they start two hours later than in Thousand Oaks, where the council convenes at 5 p.m.

But for Harris and Quidwai, the suggestion to change the meeting system raises serious First Amendment questions.

“This is changing 30 years of city policy and 210 years of this country’s policy of free speech,” said Quidwai, who, along with Ellis, is running for City Council. “This change will affect all 110,000 people in Thousand Oaks, not just me.”

Quidwai said he plans to sue the city if the resolution is passed, and that he will enlist the help of the ACLU in fighting it. He has been periodically picketing City Hall with a banner that says “Council Unfair” and “Democracy Dies” since he learned of the proposal.

Harris, who has attended almost every meeting for the past five years, agreed.

“I personally feel that my First Amendment rights are being violated,” she said. “I don’t speak that much unless I feel there is something to speak on. It’s not fair to me if I can’t speak on something I think is important.”

Fox said changing the system for public comment does not infringe on citizens’ rights to free speech.

“We’re not hurting anybody’s First Amendment rights,” he said. “If anything, we are broadening their ability to talk at a reasonable hour.”

Often residents who come to council meetings to speak on a certain issue find themselves waiting hours for it to be discussed. Agendas are sometimes rearranged at the last minute, so it is difficult to predict when the council will take comments on an issue. And if a public hearing on a particularly divisive topic drags on for hours, some agenda items are delayed until well after midnight.

The change would give residents a set time to speak on all agenda items, Fox said, making it easier to gather public input.

Although council members said the resolution is not aimed at censoring the gadflies, it does include some restrictions which would directly apply to them.

For instance, it states that “speakers should avoid repetitious comments or dilatory actions in presenting their oral comments,” and that “the Mayor may cut off any speaker straying into areas over which the City has no control, interest or jurisdiction.” It also limits speakers to a cumulative five minutes during the public comment period.

Zukowski said she has heard from some residents who no longer want to participate in meetings because the public comment system has become somewhat of a parody.

“People say, ‘Why should I come down and sit through several hours of this, where people don’t even listen to speakers anymore because they are talking about non-issues,’ ” Zukowski said.

Council members said there have also been complaints that candidates for City Council use the public comment period to make themselves known to voters.

“I am playing to the TV audience,” Quidwai acknowledged. “But not to get my name known or because I want to be popular. I’m trying to get them to change policy and to pay attention to issues.”

As for the length of meetings, which Quidwai said he doesn’t oppose, he blames the council members, saying they bicker and posture for the television audience.

“The council themselves are playing to the cameras,” he said. “They are the biggest culprit.”

Fox took exception to that. The four-member council has been getting along well of late, he said. But sometimes, he said, members do spend an inordinate amount of time championing pet projects and that should stop.

“We need to take a second look at when the council makes comments,” Fox said. “Certainly there are items that carry on a lot of public interest. But I don’t feel personally as a council member that I need to comment on everything that comes along. The campaign is over.”

Fox wants to avoid making groggy late-night--or early morning--decisions on key issues.

“It’s hard to stay focused,” Fox said. “The community should not be expected to hear a decision at 2 a.m. It is just unacceptable to have nine-hour meetings.”