City Commission Considers Excluding Public Comment Portion from Broadcasts
Three city commissioners who spoke with KVRR News said they were not warned about Mahoney's decision in advance, and indicated they oppose the decision.
FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) – The Fargo City Commission appears willing to discuss a change-of-course to a policy announced by Mayor Tim Mahoney to discontinue livestreaming public comments during city commission meetings.
Mahoney made the announcement that the city would stop including that portion in its live broadcasts of meetings.
The public comment section would still exist, it just wouldn’t be shown in live streams.
Mahoney says that decision came about because commissioners were saying they were concerned about derogatory language used during public comments, and they didn’t want that being displayed on a live feed.
Three city commissioners who spoke with KVRR News said they were not warned about Mahoney’s decision in advance, and indicated they oppose the decision.
Commissioner Denise Kolpack said she believes the mayor’s directive contradicts a 2018 city policy that requires city commission meetings to be broadcast.
Experts say the move is a bad look for the city government’s transparency, while Mahoney says he is just trying to keep inappropriate content from the broadcasts.
“A couple commissioners came to us, very concerned about derogatory comments made about them, oftentimes concerned about the manner in which people communicated, with the swearing and the cussing,” said Mahoney. “So we wanted to explore different manners in which to manage that.”
Mahoney has said they will discuss the issue again during the next commission meeting and make sure everyone is on board with the final decision.
