By Toledo Tribune
There was a time when city council meetings were a kind of civic potluck. You showed up with your thoughts, maybe a question or two, and you sat among your neighbors and listened. Some folks brought half-baked ideas, others brought seasoned wisdom, but the table was open and everyone had a chance to contribute—even if only for a moment.
But nowadays, we’ve traded the potluck for a drive-thru window.
You get three minutes to say your piece. That’s it. Doesn’t matter if the issue you’re worried about doesn’t even come up until later in the meeting. Doesn’t matter if what you have to say is rooted in decades of experience, or if you’re sitting there with a solution no one else has considered. The music starts to play, like you’re accepting an Oscar, and off you go. Sit down, citizen. Your time is up.
At the county level, it’s worse. No public comment at all—just an email address and a prayer. You can send your thoughts into the digital void, but don’t expect a reply, and certainly don’t expect the chance to respond if you’re misunderstood. If you’ve got something urgent to say, better hope your timing is perfect—or irrelevant.
What we’re seeing isn’t efficiency. It’s evasion. It’s a soft, polite way of locking the front door while leaving the porch light on.
I’ve heard folks say it’s necessary. That public meetings must remain orderly, that time is limited, and that a few loquacious citizens can hijack an evening. And yes, that happens. Every town has a few folks who mistake the microphone for a therapist. But silencing everyone to avoid being mildly inconvenienced by someone with a lot to say? That’s not leadership. That’s fear.
Our city council members, bless them, are told not to respond to the public during comment time. Not even a clarifying sentence. They’re told to sit still, nod silently, and let the timer do the talking. Apparently, engaging the public in real-time would be too disruptive. As if the people who pay the bills and drive the roads and live with the outcomes should be seen but not heard.
It’s not a meeting anymore if only one side gets to speak.
When you strip away the public’s voice, you strip away the partnership that holds democracy together. You turn citizens into spectators, then blame them when they stop showing up. You can’t run a government like a secret club and then act surprised when people lose faith in it.
Here’s the hard truth: the public isn’t the problem. The public is the purpose.
And while not every voice needs a microphone, every voice deserves a place. Even if they run a little long. Even if they ask hard questions. Especially if they offer insight no one else has.
Government works best when it works with us, not around us. And if a little mess and inconvenience is the price of doing that right, well—maybe it’s time we stopped measuring participation in minutes, and started measuring it in trust.
Because if you can’t talk to your government, it’s not really yours anymore.
And that, my friends, is the hard truth.
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