Public Comments and “Disruptions”
My name is Irfan Khawaja. I’m a resident of Princeton. I have a question for the Council, to which I request a forthright answer.

There’s a video now in the public domain which shows Councilwoman Fraga at the New Jersey League of Municipalities conference in Atlantic City, disclosing that this Council made a decision to move public comments to the end of the meeting in order to forestall disruptions. 

This is what she said, verbatim. 

What we did was the public comments, we moved it to the end of the agenda. So we got through our meeting, then moved it to the end of the agenda. But my question is, where they’re being disruptive, you know, large groups, and yelling, what action can we take?

The video is posted on my blog via my Facebook account (click hyperlink on “video” above). 

Here is my question: was the decision to move public comments motivated even in part by a desire to discourage public comments?

I ask the question because at face value, Ms Fraga’s claim makes no sense. She implies that public comments were moved to deal with “disruptions” by large groups. But a large group intent on disrupting a meeting isn’t going to wait until the end to do so. And if it does wait, the timing of the comment period doesn’t forestall or undo the disruption.

Ms Fraga’s comment only makes sense if we understand her as saying that public comments were moved in order to discourage public comment as such. Once discouraged, fewer people would be present to comment; with fewer people present, there would be fewer disruptions, but only because there would be fewer comments, period. If this is the Council’s reasoning, I would like to see it made explicit and put on the record. If it’s not, I’m content to hear a denial. But evasion is not an acceptable option. 

I’ve spent the last ten months traveling up and down this state, speaking before town councils and county commissions from Clifton to Trenton. It’s now becoming common practice in New Jersey to put a consolidated public comment session at the beginning of the meeting for both on-agenda and off-agenda comments. In no jurisdiction is it regarded as acceptable to move comments to the end of a meeting in order to reduce public participation. As per Kane vs Board of Education of Ocean Township (1995), public bodies cannot use procedures whose purpose or effect is to thwart participation. “A procedure that frustrates or discourages comment…does not satisfy” the Open Public Meetings Act. Your decision not only discourages comment but seems intended to do so. 

This is the first of several questions I intend to pose to Princeton’s Council (and in one case, Police Department) over the next few weeks.