[BCCT Guest Columnist: Scott Bomboy who serves on Perkasie Borough Council]
Do you have a constitutional right to voice your opinion at local public government meetings? The answer is surprising and a bit complicated.
For starters, the Constitution does not explicitly give residents the right to speak at local government meetings. The Supreme Court made that clear in 1915, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor repeated that ruling in 1984, when she said that “the Constitution does not grant to members of the public generally a right to be heard by public bodies making decisions of policy.”
That privilege in Pennsylvania comes from Section 710 of the state’s Sunshine Act. The Act’s first version in 1974 did not give residents the ability to comment at public meetings. Many local meetings, by that point, allowed some public comments, but no standard rules existed across the state.
The current Sunshine Act allows residents appearing before a local council or board, to “comment on matters of concern, official action or deliberation which are or may be before the board or council prior to taking official action.”
“Our prime concern,” Rep. Staback told the Scranton Tribune in 1993, “was that residents and taxpayers be given an opportunity to voice their opinions and comments on matters of concern” not limited to agenda items.
The First Amendment protects a speaker’s ability to express their thoughts, but not if their actions provoke imminent unlawful action, true threats or fighting, defame someone, or contain obscenities.
Courts have upheld the Sunshine Act’s language permitting a local council or board to place time limits on public speech, as needed, to conduct business. So what are the practical limits set by these rules?
As for Newtown Township, I am happy to say that the Board of Supervisors allow two sessions of public comments on any topic that is not on the agenda.
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