FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The Planning and Zoning Commission amended its bylaws Monday to add a yearly public participation forum with the commission and to limit public comments at regular meetings to specific agenda items.

“We would have a meeting like this that would be more beneficial to the public,” said Jean Wilson, commission chairwoman. “Our (monthly commission) meetings are not well suited for the public to give us their ideas on more than those items scheduled on our agenda.”

The changes to the bylaws also limited public comment at regular meetings to specific items already on the scheduled agenda. Prior to that amendment, the bylaws allowed public comment on any topic, subject to the chair’s limitation of testimony if “redundant, irrelevant, indecorous or untimely.”

The proposed bylaw amendments followed several commission meetings in which a local resident spoke on issues not on the agenda, criticized the actions of the commission, and made recommendations for how the commission should conduct its business regarding enforcement of city ordinances and rules.

“We don’t want this to be just a chance to complain,” said commission member Lee Turner. “The (new meetings) would be better served with a moderator, or we might just have everybody complaining about everything we’ve done wrong for the past 25 years.”

The proposed amendments stated that, “a public participation forum with the planning commission will be held one time per calendar year for general public comment. The planning commission chair will determine the site, time and location for this meeting. Public comments will be limited to planning and zoning issues relevant to the city of Fairhope, and in any event, all individuals shall be limited to ten minutes.”

During discussion of the amendments, the commission added “except as otherwise determined by chair,” regarding the time limitations on public comments during those meetings.

At regular meetings, public comments are limited to three minutes.

The commission discussed whether to have the new meetings on the same night as regular meetings.

“I would request that we have a separate meeting,” said commission member Bob Clark. “This is important enough for us to spend another night to listen to the public. It ought to be kind of an open mike night.”

Clark also suggested that the meetings be recorded, so the commission would be able to review the public comments and have a record of them, but that suggestion was not included in the amended bylaws.

Before the commission voted on the bylaw changes, Wilson said she did not think there was a need to have public comment about the proposed changes, and the commission attorney, Chris Gill, agreed. However, the chair did take one comment from a person in the audience, who had raised his hand several times during the discussion of the amendments.

Beeman Bond said he was concerned that the public would not be able to address agenda items during regular meetings. But Wilson told him the amended bylaws would allow comments on those items, but not on topics outside the agenda.

“It sounded like we were being railroaded,” Bond said.