Mayor Matson announces changes to council meetings at Saturday budget hearing

DAVENPORT, Iowa (KWQC) - Davenport Mayor Mike Matson announced rule changes regarding public comment and live streaming during council meetings at a budget hearing with the council on Saturday.

Open-ended public comment sessions will now happen after city council meetings only. Open-ended sessions will no longer happen at the committee of the whole.

Meetings will continue to be livestreamed online but the stream will end when open-ended public comment begins. Media and the public will still be allowed to use their own cameras to record these sessions.

Matson says staff will ‘edit out defamatory’ comments made toward public officials from the livestream, at the legal team’s discretion.

The allotted time for residents to give open-ended comments will be cut from five minutes to three minutes.

These new rule changes go into effect next meeting cycle which begins Feb. 21.

Rules for all other public comment sessions for specific agenda items will remain unchanged.

Matson told TV6 that he made the decision to change these rules unilaterally, but consulted with the council. He said he took the ‘middle ground’ approach when making the decision, relative to other municipalities in the area. Other council chambers in the area have more strict rules.

Matson believes these rules will make open-ended public comment sessions more ‘efficient.’

Following the announcement, the City of Davenport and City Council proceeded to their budget hearing regarding goals and priorities for the coming year.

The city presented five areas of focus for the budget, beginning with public safety and an emphasis on reducing crime and gun violence.

Next in line was infrastructure with an emphasis on the Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) which the mayor said would require a ‘large investment’ and would be a top budgetary item in discussions going forward.

Other areas of focus will be economic development, carry-over projects already underway and improving city governance.

Some council members suggested adding affordable housing and civil rights initiatives to the list of highest priorities in the budget.