LEWISTON, Maine – The Lewiston City Council rejected two proposed changes to its meeting rules Tuesday night, voting down efforts to reduce public speaking time from three minutes to two minutes and to eliminate the second public comment period from council agendas.
The proposed amendments came under Policy Manual No. 6, the rules governing the city council, and were presented as part of a broader discussion about the growing length of council meetings.
Mayor Carl Sheline argued that meetings have been running too long and said the council should make a conscious effort to keep them shorter without rushing through business. He said meetings were stretching into the middle of the night and pointed to the burden on residents, councilors, and staff who remain for hours.
In making the case for reducing public comment time to two minutes, Sheline said shorter remarks would encourage speakers to get to the point, stay on topic, and allow more voices to be heard. He also said agenda item public comment periods were regularly running past 10 p.m., forcing some residents to leave before they had the chance to speak.
To illustrate his point, Sheline held up the Gettysburg Address, calling it one of the finest speeches ever and noting that it is short enough to be read in about two minutes.
He also said he favored eliminating the second public comment period because it is rarely used, largely because it comes late in the meeting. On the final proposal, setting a 10 p.m. end time unless the council votes to continue, Sheline said the goal was to create time pressure that would keep council discussion concise and germane.
But several councilors pushed back, saying the public was not the reason meetings were running late.
Councilor Scott Harriman said he did not support either the first or second item and stated plainly that meetings were not too long because of public comment.
Councilor Joshua Nagine said cutting public speaking time from three minutes to two minutes would do little other than aggravate people who already have limited time to address the council. Nagine also objected to removing the second comment period, saying that even if it is rarely used, it could still serve a purpose.
Nagine argued that the real problem was the way meetings are structured. He said the council is packing too many agenda items into each meeting, refusing to schedule additional meetings, and failing to adhere to Robert’s Rules of Order in a way that would keep debate moving. He pointed to the evening’s presentation from the resiliency center as an example of an important and emotional subject that should have been given a dedicated meeting rather than inserted between agenda items.
He also noted the long hours imposed on city staff, saying that happens at nearly every meeting.
Council President David Chittim, who said he drafted the rules establishing the second public comment period, acknowledged that the language had been poorly crafted. He said the original intent was for the second comment period to be used only when more people wished to speak than could fit into the initial 18-minute window.
Chittim said he was ambivalent about changing speaking time from three minutes to two but opposed removing the second comment period entirely. Instead, he said he favored keeping the initial 18-minute window firm and allowing any overflow speakers to be heard at the end of the meeting.
Public comment on the proposals was overwhelmingly opposed.
Matthew Roy of Ward 6 said he opposed all three changes, warning that a 10 p.m. hard stop would create a backlog of agenda items and make it harder for councilors to get their business heard. He pointed to past meetings with as many as 29 agenda items and warned that limiting time without adding more meetings would create an avalanche effect.
Another Lewiston resident argued that the focus should not be on cutting public speaking time, but on better facilitation, training, and enforcement around disruptive conduct. She said free speech is not abuse, harassment, or defamation, and added that many speakers could finish within the allotted time if they were not interrupted.
Matthew Agren of Ward 4 said public trust depends on transparency, accountability, and open dialogue, not one-sided messaging. He criticized the suggestion that residents could simply email their comments, noting that some councilors have said they do not respond to those messages. He proposed posting public comments online, with identifying information redacted, so residents could at least know their input had been received.
Lisa Jones of Ward 2 said she appreciated discussion about shortening meetings, but said better solutions would be to schedule more meetings or start them earlier. She also said nobody is operating at their best late at night and agreed that council members sometimes extend meetings by repeating themselves.
Another resident, Ann Chartrand of Ward 3, said she agreed meetings should be shorter and that sleep matters when difficult decisions are being made, but said shortening public comment would prevent people from being heard. She said she could personally live with the change but did not favor it.
Councilor Mike Roy said public speaking takes courage and that residents need to be heard. She said she did not support “censoring everybody” by condensing comment time to two minutes, though she floated the idea of one rebuttal period.
Councilor Longchamps said she was not in favor of cutting public speaking time and said the council itself needs to do a better job shortening meetings. Longchamps also said the mayor needs to do a better job controlling the meeting.
Councilor Martel opposed all three proposals and said there are better ways to run meetings more efficiently. He said the council gives too many warnings to disruptive audience members without consequences and argued that the answer is not to cut off public speech. Martel said public comment is how he first became engaged in city government and eventually ended up on the council himself.
City Administrator Bryan Kaenrath offered a broader view, saying there is no single “smoking gun” behind Lewiston’s lengthy meetings. Instead, he said, multiple factors are contributing. He suggested that she and the city clerk research how other communities structure agendas, rules, and procedures to identify ways to improve efficiency.
Kaenrath said that even much larger cities have far shorter meetings, citing New York City as an example. She said Lewiston’s long meetings are not the result of the city being too large or too complex and said staff could return with recommendations.
After debate, the council first voted 7-0 to move the previous question, ending discussion on the first item.
The council then unanimously rejected the proposal to reduce public speaking time from three minutes to two minutes, with all seven councilors voting no.
The second proposal, to eliminate the second public comment period, also failed unanimously by a 0-7 vote.
The third proposal, to set a 10 p.m. meeting ending time unless the council votes to continue, was introduced and moved, but discussion continued after Councilor Hanneman said the idea may have some potential, though he believed the wording needed more work and suggested waiting for the staff research before moving forward.
All of these votes took place after midnight and into the early morning of Wednesday, meaning that the meeting had already taken six hours and with further items still on the agenda.
