For those looking to share public comments with the Arvada City Council, time may be running out.

On Feb. 3, the council unanimously voted to postpone a vote on the timing of public comments during regular meetings until April 21 after a presentation from Deputy City Attorney Nora Steenson in which she proposed multiple changes to the entire comment process.

The current city rules are “outdated and arranged illogically,” according to Steenson, adding that the council brought up issues during a study session regarding the “delay in addressing city business that was already or previously scheduled on the agenda.”

As the rules currently stand, there are two separate public comment periods at meetings. The city allows three-minute comments at the beginning of the meeting and five-minute comments at the end. Comments related to certain agenda items can also be made during public hearings regarding the item near the middle of the meeting.

Most people, according to Steenson, want to make comments about the items spoken about in the public hearings but speak during the first public comment section, often causing delays to the start of the meeting.

“This pushes scheduled items later into the evening, which can cause a real hardship for our working residents,” Steenson said.

The proposed changes include setting time limits for the entirety of public comment periods, like 30 minutes or an hour, prioritizing Arvada residents to speak first and limiting the topics people can speak on during public comments to things not included in the later public hearings.

Other changes would be allowing groups of people to “pool,” or share, their time during public comments and putting a time limit of an hour on both stance sides of a public hearing, which all councilmembers seemed to approve of.

The changes in the proposed ordinance brought some pushback from residents.

“I’m really concerned about our First Amendment rights. We should be able to address our public officials freely and we shouldn’t be restricted to some small number at the beginning of the meeting,” resident Dan Bradley said to council members.

“I don’t care if there are five people here or 50 people here, you are obliged to hear what the public has to say,” resident Mike Schweitzer said. “If it takes that long to have a discussion and come to a conclusion, educating both sides, then that’s what it’s going to take.”

Arvada isn’t the first city or county to deal with changes to public comments in the past year.

The Douglas County Board of Commissioners ended public comments at meetings at the beginning of the year, but will still allow comments regarding items that are specified on the agenda, according to its website.

Aurora saw an expansion of its public comments at the end of last year following a restriction. The council, prior to the November election, had limited public comment to two-minute speeches at the beginning of public meetings. The new council reestablished the rules of allowing two public comment sections at the beginning and end.