T’bonne council passes on changing time limit for public input at meetings

After introducing a measure to limit speakers wishing to address the Terrebonne Parish Council to three minutes, Councilman Kevin Voisin, along with the council, had second thoughts.

Dubbed the “Reggie Bourg Memorial Idea,” the item on last week’s Policy, Procedure and Legal Committee meeting agenda was intended to help curb the large number of speaker cards presented to the council by a single person. Dulac resident Bourg is known for submitting cards requesting time to address the council on numerous agenda items at a single night’s meeting.

“I’m going to take some credit for having this on the agenda even though my name’s not attached to it,” Voisin said. “Mr. Bourg has had a very interesting way of shaping these meetings by showing up uninformed, and wrecking good items and in attempt to try and curve that behavior, I looked at possible solutions.

“The more I thought about this item, the more I realized for one individual, we would be limiting the freedom of speech and expression of every other person,” Voisin said. “They come and they speak on the topic at the time of the topic, and they have great points.”

Stating that it would be a terrible thing to do, Voisin and the rest of council took no action on the proposal. Terrebonne Parish will continue to allow residents to speak multiple times at committee meetings.

Councilman Alvin Tillman noted it was important to keep speakers on topic and in accordance with speaking rules.

“We come here to take care of business, you’re going to follow the rules. You may not care for the person who is chair of the meeting, but you’re going to respect the chair or you’re going to get out of here,” he said.

The council will discuss a possible proposal to limit speakers’ time to three minutes at future meetings, as suggest by councilman Billy Hebert.

“I think this council has proven that when people are on point, whether we agree or not, we’ve shown we give people extra time, so I think three minutes is a great idea,” Voisin said.