Board of Regents to take 30 minutes of public comment at meetings

The Board of Regents on Wednesday unveiled more details about a long-awaited change allowing public comment at meetings, including that members of the public will have to sign up online.

The nine-member board that governs Iowa's public universities will start offering a public comment during its June 7-8 meeting in Cedar Falls.

Via a pilot program, the board will reserve 30 minutes for public comment immediately after the full board convenes at 10 a.m. June 8, according to a news release. Anyone wanting to present to the board during the period can fill out a request online in advance of the meeting.

Each presenter will have up to three minutes to speak, meaning 10 people can present per meeting, according to the board. The request forms will be available on the board's website beginning Tuesday - once the agenda for the meeting is made public.

Those who want to speak about issues on the agenda will receive priority over those wanting to address unrelated issues.

The pilot program will only offer public comment periods during in-person, regularly-scheduled board meetings - not those called for special purposes or conducted telephonically, according to the board.

'The public comment pilot program will be evaluated on an ongoing basis,” according to the board.

The regents long have allowed members of the public to reach out to the board to request time on an upcoming agenda to speak. But the board hasn't before designated a period of time for such comments or spelled out a process and form for making the request.

The change is a longtime coming for some members of the public and university communities who have criticized the board for its lack of transparency and community engagement. For several years, the board has been holding separate transparency hearings on each of the campuses days before the regular board meetings. Members of the public who attend those must speak into a camera, which records their comments and makes them available to the regents, who are not present for the hearings.

No one confirms regents watch the videos, and speakers have said they often don't receive feedback.

Additional information on the pilot public comment period can be found at iowaregents.edu.