OCEANSIDE — The Planning Commission discussed changing its bylaws to include speaker slips at future meetings on Monday.
City Planner Jeff Hunt suggested the change in order to give the state Coastal Commission a more accurate report on meeting speakers. He said speaker information is currently gathered by listening to speakers as they state their names, which can lead to misspellings, or unintentional omissions.
Hunt said he spoke with City Clerk Zack Beck and concluded it would be a simple procedure to add to meetings, and be best to use speaker slips on all items, not just Coastal Commission items.
Hunt added speaker slips also provide a head count of how many speaker there are on an item, and can help determine whether a shorter time limit needs to be imposed on public comments.
Planning Commissioners questioned if speakers would be required to fill out the slips, and voiced concern that they did not want to discourage residents from speaking.
Assistant City Attorney Barbara Hamilton said it would not be a requirement, but a request. She added in some instances, such as living next door to a proposed project, a resident might not want there to be a permanent record that they spoke.
Commissioners agreed to introduce bylaw changes at the next meeting.
The Planning Commission will use a speaker slip similar to the one used by the City Council, which asks speakers to provide their name and address.
The city is also looking into an electronic speaker sign in system for meetings.
