Mayor announces return of public comment section for Pocatello Council meetings

POCATELLO — Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad recently announced that the city would bring back the public comment section at regular City Council meetings.

The public comment section allowed members of the public to speak on any issue that wasn’t on the rest of the agenda.

Blad made this announcement from the council chambers on Monday at a town hall meeting where the public was invited to address the council and share their thoughts. Starting Thursday, the “Items from the Audience” agenda item will be added back after being absent since Jan. 5.

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“I’ve worked with the council,” Blad said. “For the last month and a half, the council has said, ‘Look, I think we should bring it back.’ And so I finally decided,’OK, let’s bring it back and see what happens.'”

Lynda Eggimann, the first member of the public to speak, said that removing the public comment period was a “terrible thing” to do.

“I picked on the mayor, but it’s not his fault. It’s the fault of every one of you who allowed it,” said Eggimann.

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“The council had nothing to do with removing… the public comment period. That was me. That was my decision,” Blad said.

Blad said the public comment period had been underused in the past, with often the same people speaking about the same issues. He said that more than half of the time, nobody would speak during this public comment period.

“We weren’t getting the bang for the buck that we should have been,” Blad said in an interview after the meeting.

He also said that when people go to the City Council and speak during the public comment period, the council isn’t allowed to take official action on an issue during the meeting.

“We’ve got to go run it through a process that takes weeks or months,” Blad said.

Blad said he still feels that issues can be dealt with faster if people bring the problem directly to him or a City Council member.

“So my fear is we’ve now slowed the process back down to the speed of government, as opposed to the speed of business,” Blad said.

Blad still isn’t completely convinced that the public comment section will be utilized, but he recognizes that members of the public want it and the council has asked for it to return.