Council hears language to revisit public comment portion

ST. MARYS - Following a contentious St. Marys council meeting earlier this month about the city's Marshallese residents, city councilors on Monday heard first reading of an ordinance establishing new public participation rules.

"I think we need it," council president James Harris said of the legislation. "This gives us something to refer to, not only with the (council) president … but for any of you guys in office."

If approved on final reading, the ordinance would amend section 121.01 of the codified ordinance.

The communications and petitions portion of the council's meeting agenda would be dedicated to allowing the public at large to speak on issues pertaining to city business at each regular council meeting.

Citizens would be permitted to speak only one time during communications and petitions per meeting.

Citizens desiring to speak during communications and petitions would use the podium in council chambers and would be required to state their name, home address (no business or post office boxes) and specific subject matter on which they intend to speak. If a speaker failed to meet these requirements, the presiding officer would not recognize that particular speaker.

Each speaker would direct his or her comments toward council as a whole and would not direct questions or comments to individual members of council or toward other members of the public.

A speaker would observe all rules of decorum as prescribed in Robert's Rules of Order. No debate, disrespect or obscenities would be tolerated. The presiding officer would rule any such individual out of order.

Council members, other elected officials and administrative representatives would not debate with the public speakers, and they would only answer questions as directed by the presiding officer.

Speaker's would be limited to five minutes during any communication and petitions session, including all of the participation by council members, elected officials and administration representatives.

Violation of the rules would potentially result in the speaker being asked to cease speaking and/or being removed from council chambers by police, and referred for prosecution for disturbing a lawful meeting.

In other business, city water and sewer superintendent Kelly Jutte discussed city water service line inventories.

To protect customers from lead in drinking water, the department is working to identify and catalog all service lines, including those in their homes, she said.

As part of the Lead and Copper Rule revision, established by the EPA in 1991, every utility has to develop a service line inventory that includes system-owned and customer-owned service line material classification, Jutte said.

"Not only do we need to know what's on our side of the service line, but we also need to know what's on (the) customer side of the service line," she said. "We also need to know if these service lines were ever previously lead."

Just last week, the city's water and sewer department sent out notifications informing customers if their service lines fall under lead, galvanized or lead service unknown. A galvanized service line is or was, at any time, downstream of a lead service line or currently downstream of a "lead status unknown" service line, she said.

"These notifications will be repeated on an annual basis until we get a good inventory of everybody, or until all of our lead and galvanized lines are out of service," Jutte said. "So they've been exchanged with either copper or plastic, other homes or buildings."

Jutte said there has been no lead or copper detected in the city's water lines when sampling.

She added that about one-third of customers, or 1,600, received notifications last week.

In other business, Mayor Joe Hurlburt Jr. swore in two new firefighters, Weslee T. Brubaker, a Sidney High School graduate, and Tyler A. Ross, a Celina High School graduate.

City safety/service director Greg Foxhoven said the fire department is now fully staffed with 15 firefighters, which includes the fire chief and captains.

The council will meet next at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 9 in council chambers.