Riverhead Town Board considers limiting public comments, banning signs at meetings

The Riverhead Town Board is considering new meeting rules that would reduce the time members of the public are allowed to speak, allow the supervisor to remove speakers for “unnecessarily repetitive” comments, and stop people from commenting through Zoom except during public hearings.

The amount of time for members of the public to speak about resolutions on the board’s agenda or any town matter would be shortened to three minutes, from the current five minutes, according to revised procedural rules presented this week. Additionally, speakers would not be able to comment through Zoom or other teleconferencing apps in that section of the meeting, as they can now. Those rules would not apply to public hearings, during which speakers do not have a time limit and can still speak through Zoom.

The proposed rules would allow the supervisor or chairperson of the meeting to rule that a “speaker’s comments are deemed to be impertinent to the subject of the hearing and/or unnecessarily repetitive” to their own or prior speakers’ comments, and to direct that speaker to leave. The chairperson’s ruling on the matter could only be overruled by a majority of the Town Board.

The proposed rules say that police are able to enforce orders to remove a speaker for that reason, or other behaviors the supervisor or board considers “disruptive” — including “partisan political commentary and personal, impertinent, slanderous or profane remarks directed at any member of the Board, town staff, general public, applicants before the Board and/or invited guests.” Every elected official in Riverhead was elected as a Republican.

Town officials said the new rules will help speed up meetings and give every person who wants to speak the chance to speak. Some older people who want to comment leave during the meeting because of the amount of time speakers take at the podium, board members said. 

Town Attorney Erik Howard presented the revised rules to the board during Thursday’s work session, with a warm reception. Howard said the board’s rules were last updated in 2019. 

Currently the Town Board’s rules state that: “No member of the public shall engage in any disruptive demonstration or otherwise disrupt the formality of a Town Board meeting,” while giving the chairperson of the meeting — which is usually the supervisor — the responsibility to “preserve order and decorum.” The current rules do not give the chairperson specific powers to enforce that rule.

Supervisor Tim Hubbard said the changes to the Town Board rules were prompted by his conversations with other supervisors. “We’re all trying to be, you know, unified. And it was interesting to see how different towns handled their meetings — and they were shocked to hear that we gave five minutes,” he said in an interview on Thursday. 

Town Board members indicated they would be lenient with the new time rules, as they often are now.

There is no requirement in the New York State Open Meetings Law that boards provide an opportunity for public comment on resolutions or on any matter during public meetings. Howard said his recommendation is to keep the public comment portions of the meeting “because, I think, the public’s participation in that is important.”

Town Board members said the new rules would not be in place to quash criticism. “Criticism is acceptable,” Council Member Ken Rothwell said. “You don’t need to agree with us — and you have a right to — but just do it in a kind and courteous manner.” 

“Yes. It does not necessarily need to be kind, it just needs to be professional. It should be courteous. But it just shouldn’t be disrespectful on its face,” Howard said.

When asked in an interview about the section related to repetitive comments, Hubbard indicated that he would not enforce that provision. “People want a chance to say what they feel,” he said. The purpose is ”keep the meetings timely,” he said.

Public hearings are required under state law for adopting local laws and other actions. Hubbard said the town wants to keep Zoom accessibility for public hearings because “you want to hear from everybody on that. It’s important,” Hubbard said. “On general comments, they can write the comments in, or they can come down and speak.”

Howard said the Town Board could limit time for speakers at public hearings, if necessary. The state suggests that town governments should “consider limiting comments to three to five minutes” if a meeting is heavily attended, he said. “So that’s something that the board could implement on sort of a case–by-case basis.”

The new rules proposal comes after Hubbard promised last year at the beginning of his term to bring civility back to Town Hall. “No more circus atmosphere at board meetings,” the supervisor said during his inaugural address. 

Since then the town was hit with a notice of claim from Ron Hariri, an Aquebogue resident and regular agitator to the Town Board, for violating his rights to speak at a meeting in November. Hariri, who typically speaks through Zoom and is often muted at Hubbard’s direction, was speaking in-person during the public hearing on the town’s budget when he got into an argument with Hubbard. Hariri was ejected from the meeting room, at Hubbard’s direction, under police escort. Hariri has said he intends to sue the town for $10 million in damages.

Recently Hubbard experienced difficulty controlling speakers at the public hearing to legalize the building of a go-kart track and other new amenities at Scott’s Pointe amusement park in Calverton. Many at that hearing spoke about the character of the business’s owner, despite Hubbard’s repeated urges to keep their focus on the site plan. 

The proposed rules would also ban “signs, signboards, posters, banners and the like” at meetings. “Such instruments serve to distract, disrupt and/or obstruct viewing of the meeting and given the opportunities to speak before the Town Board on a variety of matters do not substantively contribute to the business of the Town Board,” the rule says. 

Several contentious issues have filled the Town Board meeting room with residents in recent years, including opposition to the development of warehouses, legislation to allow resorts on Sound Avenue, a proposal to allow charter schools on industrial land, and others. While not everybody in those meetings spoke to the board, many held signs in support of their position and cheered while others spoke at the podium. 

The Suffolk County Legislature banned signs at their public meetings at the beginning of the year after attendees held up signs referencing the war in Gaza, according to Newsday.

The rules would also give the board the authority to adopt local laws immediately after holding a public hearing if “no person affirmatively opposes subject matter of the Public Hearing and sets forth substantive reasons” for their opposition. If someone speaks against the subject of the hearing, the board’s decisions “shall be reserved until at least the next Regular Meeting or Special Meeting of the Board to permit sufficient time to allow comment to be evaluated” and to receive written comment. 

Howard also proposed that the rules prohibit the board ratifying the passage of new local laws. “This happened once or twice in the past where we did a ratification of the local law, and I didn’t really think that was the correct procedure to do it…I don’t like the optics of doing it by ratification. And I think… it opens up arguments about the validity of the law,” Howard said. The board can always call a special meeting if it is necessary to pass a local law before a scheduled meeting, he said. 

The revised rules also say the board shall endeavor to schedule public hearings on proposed local laws and land-use applications for meetings that begin at 6 p.m., instead of 2 p.m. It also spells out what would be a new procedure for obtaining the opinion of town advisory committees and town staff members.

“There’s a lot in here for us to digest. I know we just got it a couple days ago,” Hubbard said. “So, you know, read through it. You have any questions — obviously, we can go to Eric and ask and we’ll bring this up at a future board meeting for adoption.”

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Editor’s note: This article was amended after its initial publication to correct a misstatement of a provision in the proposed rules concerning the scheduling of hearings on proposed local laws and land-use applications.