County expands public comment policy, allows discussion of current agenda items

ROCKINGHAM — The Richmond County Board of Commissioners have officially amended their public comment policy to allow for more time to sign up to speak and for speakers to address items on the current meeting’s agenda.

With the unanimous vote, the county will now publicize the agenda for the next meeting by 5 p.m. on the Wednesday before the meeting the following Tuesday, and the deadline for sign-up would be 5 p.m. on the previous Friday. The topics that speakers are able to discuss during their allotted time is now only limited to “the business and activities of the county,” apart from restrictions on discussing legal, personnel or business matters which would be discussed in closed session or discussing candidates for public office.

Additionally, speakers are barred from making personal attacks or statements that would be considered slanderous, or intended to embarrass citizens, officials or employees of Richmond County.

The previous version of the policy, originally adopted in 1997 and last amended in 2011, required speakers to sign up by 5 p.m. on the Friday before the Tuesday meeting, at which point the agenda would only have been available online for less than five hours. Grooms, who ran on changing this policy in the 2020 election, felt that it was too restrictive and, in effect, “discouraged” members of the public from engaging with the Board of Commissioners.

The new policy, which was proposed by Commissioner Andy Grooms in December, unofficially had full approval from the commissioners going into the January meeting, but County Manager Bryan Land asked to delay to final vote until Tuesday to allow County Attorney Bill Webb the chance to fully review it.

Land said Tuesday that Webb has given the policy his “blessing.”

County Clerk Dena Cook was tasked with researching the comment policies of other counties in the state and consulted the UNC School of Government for guidance on drafting the policy.

The initial draft presented to the commissioners reduced the time limit for a solo speaker from 5 minutes to 3 minutes (from 10 minutes to 6 for group speakers), which was consistent with other counties Cook reviewed. Grooms requested that it remain 5 minutes for a solo speaker, and Land instructed Cook to make that change to the final version.