FAIRHOPE, Ala. - At the next City Council meeting, local citizens will have a new forum to communicate publicly with city leaders.

The council adopted a resolution Monday that will add an additional public participation opportunity at the first council meeting of each month.

Currently at council meetings, citizens can speak only about items that are on the council agenda that night and are limited to three minutes. And the council usually refrains from responding to the comments.

The new procedure will change that.

Starting at 5 p.m. Feb. 14, the new public participation policy will take effect and thereafter at the first council meeting on the second Monday of each month.

“Each participant would get four minutes to address his or her issue, then the appropriate City Official (Councilmember, Mayor, department head) would have four minutes to respond,” the new procedure states. “After the official’s response, the participant would have one minute to rebut followed by the official’s minute to respond to the rebuttal. The chair of the meeting (the Council President) could waive the time limits, if he or she deemed that necessary.”

The resolution passed 4-1 with Councilman Dan Stankoski voting against the measure.

“I’ve opposed this several times before,” Stankoski said. “I think it’s redundant.”

Editor’s note: See Friday’s newspaper for additional coverage of the Jan. 24 City Council meeting.