Blaine City Council to consider bringing back oral comment

Blaine City Council is expected to introduce a motion at its next meeting on Monday, February 24 that could return oral public comment to council meetings after it was banned a year ago.

Mayor Mary Lou Steward stopped letting people make three-minute public comments at the February 12, 2024 council meeting after a small group started throwing accusations at council members and city staff. The group was so disruptive that Blaine Police Department began sending officers to meetings to keep things under control.

Councilmember Eric Lewis brought up reintroducing oral comment to fellow councilmembers during the February 10 meeting. Lewis’ proposal needed support from two other council members for the motion to be placed on the next meeting’s agenda, and councilmembers Sonia Hurt and Richard May provided that support. Three councilmembers, the mayor or city manager have the authority to put items on the agenda.

A couple of members of the public hollered and fist pumped following the support from the three councilmembers. Blaine residents Donna Newman and Tina Erwin, who were involved in the initial public comments, held signs throughout the meeting on a variety of concerns, one of which advocated for oral public comment.

The state’s Open Public Meetings Act, which outlines rules for government agencies, only requires governing bodies to accept public comment either by oral or written testimony, though most agencies accept both. State law also allows members of the public to be removed if they are deemed disruptive. The city has continued to allow written comment.

In October 2023, public comment became tense following city council’s approval of a zoning text amendment that allowed large manufactured home parks in east Blaine. Distrust grew between east Blaine residents against the zoning change and the city, and a subgroup that called themselves “Save Blaine” began accusing the city of being unethical and lacking transparency on a variety of topics. Newman, using the pseudonym Madam Watchdog, played recordings of an altered voice called “the Professor,” and the group began knocking on doors of Blaine households to share their beliefs.

Blaine City Council isn’t the only governing body in Whatcom County that has prohibited oral public comment recently. Bellingham City Council reinstated oral comment in mid-January after removing it last November due to security concerns in council chambers. A speaker was removed for verbally attacking an individual last October and the Bellingham council has dealt with hate speech targeting Jews in February 2024 and March 2020, according to the Bellingham Herald.

The city of Bellingham hired Blaine-based private security firm Homeland Security Operations to provide metal detector screenings at council meetings. Blaine City Council meetings have no similar security measures.

Steward also made the decision to suspend remote video access to Blaine council meetings in November 2023 after a ‘Zoombombing’ incident involving racial slurs occurred that October. City officials believed the disruption was part of several similar incidents of AI-generated bots spouting racist remarks at public meetings across Washington and Oregon around the same time.

Blaine City Council has not reinstated the remote meeting option, while other governing bodies that have experienced ‘Zoombombings,’ including Bellingham City Council, have brought them back.