TONIGHT: BIG Putnam County Legislature Committee Meeting

Tonight, the Putnam County Legislature Rules Committee is meeting at 6:30 in room 318 at the Putnam County Office building in Carmel Hamlet.

The big issue on the agenda is a resolution to codify the rights of the public to actually speak to their elected representatives about the issues they care about BEFORE they vote on them at legislative meetings.

This has been controversially handled by this legislative body in a concerted effort to shut the public out.

Here’s a recap:

On March 4th, the Putnam County Legislature had its full legislative meeting for the month. At that meeting, it controversially voted to remove a resolution from the agenda that was up for a full vote.

That resolution was to codify into the Legislative manual the rights of the public to speak directly to their representatives BEFORE they take a vote.

Back on February 19th, at the last Rules Committee meeting, this very resolution passed WITHOUT OBJECTION out of committee so that it could be voted on at the full meeting.

I spoke at that meeting, on behalf of the public, about the importance of codification of this resolution. As it stands now, the right of the public to speak at committee meetings is entirely left up to the whims of the committee chairperson.

At full legislative meetings, the public is barred from speaking until the very end, after all issues have been voted on. And at that, the public can only address items presently on the agenda.

Here were my comments to the legislature on February 19th, when this resolution was introduced:

Without codification of this resolution, the public will continue to NOT have any guaranteed protection in order to make their voices heard directly to their representatives on issues they care about.

At the full legislative meeting on March 4th, as soon as this resolution was introduced as an agenda item, District 6 (Southeast) Legislator Paul Jonke made an immediate motion to have it removed entirely from the agenda, which was seconded immediately by District 5 (Carmel Hamlet/Kent) Legislator Greg Ellner.

That led to a 5-4 vote in favor of removing it from the agenda and denying it from receiving a vote. Only Legislators Montgomery, Crowley (who introduced the resolution), Gouldman, and Russo voted to keep the resolution on the agenda.

Despite it no longer being on the agenda, thereby technically preventing me from speaking on it at that meeting, I again reminded the legislature of the importance of this issue and how denying the public its voice was wholly antithetical to the founding of our constitutional republic.

Tonight, this resolution will be reintroduced for even more discussion, despite the fact it already passed out of this very committee less than a month ago.

Unfortunately, at this point it is difficult to not feel as if the legislature is attempting to put this off and continue to kick the can down the road on this because the 5-seat majority of Jonke, Ellner, Sayegh, Addonizio, and Birmingham must know how deeply unpopular their position on this is.

So rather than go on the record with a deeply unpopular vote, they have decided to kick the can down the road.

I will be there again tonight to encourage all nine legislators to again pass this out of committee and put it on the April agenda for that months full legislative meeting, where it must receive an actual vote from it’s members.

I encourage anyone who can to please attend this meeting. If you are unable to attend, you can watch on the Putnam County Government YouTube channel. It is important for the Public to be informed on what this body is doing, especially when they seem intent on preventing that very thing.