Power and access in the public hearings of city council meetings

Introduction

Citizen participation in civic life is often viewed as the basis for democracy, and while many scholars seem to agree that civic participation is important and most likely to occur at the local level of government (Barber, 1981; Katz and Miller, 1996; Lisman, 1998; Mathews, 2000; Waddell, 1996), they tend to disagree on both the extent to which citizens should participate and the possibilities for participation in contemporary practice. Some scholars, invoking a Habermasian model of citizen participation, argue that citizens should be granted unimpeded access to resources and information, unrestricted interactions with government officials, and equal capacity to influence and contribute to decision-making (Barber, 1981; Bohman and Rehg, 1997; Katz and Miller, 1996; Mathews, 2000; Waddell, 1996; Wells, 1996). Others, however, argue that models of citizen participation as equal and accessible obscure actual practices of citizen participation, which they claim are unequal, inaccessible, ineffectual, and restricted (Benhabib, 1992; Fiorino, 1990; Fraser, 1990; Ryan, 1992). Such disparities between theoretical models and actual practices of citizen participation have led many to underscore the need to clarify the relations that exist between governments and citizens, and elucidate the kinds of participation in which citizens engage (Berry et al., 1993; Chrislip and Larson, 1994; Crotty, 1991; Katz and Miller, 1996; Langton, 1978; Lisman, 1998). Specifically, scholars argue that understandings of and expectations for the ways in which citizens interact with government officials and the manner in which government officials interact with citizens tend to be ambiguous, and that many of the research findings have been contradictory, resulting in an array of unanswered questions (Bohman and Rehg, 1997; Crotty, 1991; Langton, 1978). Further, Bohman and Rehg (1997) argue that existing scholarship on government–citizen interactions tends to be based on ideal rather than actual practices and that it is difficult to connect such normative studies to the practices of governments and to real possibilities for democratic reform. As such, scholars call for studies of civic participation in practice and analyses of government and citizen interactions that generate definitions, distinctions, and descriptions. As Langton contends, with such improved tools, scholars can better study and develop a body of knowledge about interactions between government and citizens; government officials can increase their capacity to plan, direct, and evaluate how citizens interact and participate in political matters; and citizens can be clearer about the values, opportunities, strategies, and tactics associated with their interactions and participation in political deliberations.

Over the past 20 years, a number of studies of citizen participation have been conducted, including Fiorino’s (1990) study of participation in public hearings, public surveys, initiatives, and citizen review panels; Waddell’s (1996) and Simmons’ (2007) studies of committee meetings; Wells’ (1996) study of committee reports; Katz and Miller’s (1996) study of public hearings; and Ryfe’s (2003) study of community organizations. However, studies of government and citizen interactions in city council meetings, the official meetings of the city where votes on legislation occur, are lacking. This article responds to the call for more studies of citizen participation in practice, particularly studies of the interactions that occur between citizens and government officials participating in the official work of the city.

The data

Data for the study were collected from a longitudinal case study of a northeast Ohio government’s city council meetings over a five-year period (1996–2001). Although data from over 70 city council meetings were collected, a subset of the data was used to systematically investigate citizen participation in city council discourse. The data set includes two public hearings from a city council meeting of Huddie Park ¹ and includes an analysis of the larger context in which these hearings occurred. Data analysis focused on the discourse and exchange sequences in the hearings as well as on the production and use of the agenda that served to control the topics of the hearing. Moreover, analysis focused on the legislative item being considered during the hearing, including the legislative process that led to the public hearing, all of which are necessary to understand the hearings and the larger institutional context in which the hearings occurred.

Data were also collected from four additional cities’ council meetings in northeastern Ohio (2000–2001) and six additional cities’ council meetings in four different states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, and New Jersey (2001–2005). Although results of these meetings are beyond the scope of this investigation, the findings were consistent with those of the city of Huddie Park.

Data analysis

This study used a mixed method approach for the analysis of data. Grounded theory was used as the primary method of analysis because it offered a means by which to systematically, thoroughly, and inductively analyze the data, and it also provided a means by which to account for contextual and discursive features. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used to examine dimensions of power and access that figured prominently in the interactions between citizens and government officials. Using CDA also provided a means by which to examine both the distinct material text produced, including the oral discourse and the written transcript of the spoken discourse, and the larger social and organizational context that constructs and is constructed by discourse. Further, using CDA allowed for analysis of two dimensions of power: power in discourse, involving those with power and authority controlling and constraining less powerful participants, and power behind discourse, involving the dynamics of power that affect language, setting, and access to discourse. Finally, McLaughlin’s (1984) and Schegloff’s (1968, 1990) conversation analysis (CA) approach to social and institutional interaction was used to categorize discourse into discrete turns and to determine sequences of exchange in the discourse.

For the analysis, I primarily used audiotapes and transcriptions of the audiotaped recordings of the city council meetings, but I also used extensive and detailed field notes, documents (agendas, minutes, memos, letters, and proposals for legislation), theoretical memos derived from grounded theory analysis, and interviews to contextualize the discourse and exchanges between participants.

Theoretical framework

According to Fairclough (1989, 1992) and Van Dijk (1989, 1996), a reciprocal relationship exists between discourse and power so that power necessarily manifests itself in discourse and discourse plays a key role in the production and reproduction of power. For Van Dijk (1996), power is defined in terms of the ‘control exercised by one group or organization over the action and/or minds of another group, thus limiting the freedom of actions of the others’ (p. 84), and, as he suggests, one of the key factors in the production and reproduction of power and one of the primary means by which power is exercised is by controlling and restricting ‘access to discourse and communicative events’ (Van Dijk, 1996: 85). In his work, Van Dijk (1993) identifies four dimensions of access through which power relations within social practices are enacted: planning, setting, discourse, and audience. Indeed, he claims that ‘one crucial power resource is privileged or preferential access to discourse’ where ‘some (elite) participants may control the occasion, time, place, setting, and the presence or absence of participants in such events’ (p. 259).

Although scholars have argued that local government may provide the greatest opportunities for civic participation in public policy and may be the most accessible to citizens, research reveals that authority, power, and status tend to restrict participation at the local level and to exclude citizens and limit their opportunities for participation (Fiorino, 1990; Hauser, 1999; Katz and Miller, 1996; Ryfe, 2003; Simmons, 2007; Waddell, 1996). On the surface, city council meetings appear to be accessible because citizens are provided with two opportunities to participate in the legislative process (public hearings and public discussions); however, a closer look reveals that power plays a central role in city council meetings and constrains the participation that occurs. As such, Van Dijk’s framework was important in evaluating and understanding the kinds of participation and interactions that transpired and the extent of participation permissible in the council meetings.

Context

Council meetings

Huddie Park’s council meetings occur twice per month and take place in Council Chambers in the town hall, which is situated across from the village green. The council meetings are the official meetings of the city, the place of public record where government officials vote on legislation and where citizens are permitted to participate in matters of public concern. Council Chambers is a room filled with history where historic relics and documents are displayed in wooden cases, and official, symbolic flags are exhibited throughout the room. The large, rectangular room contains tall, arched windows, each of which is flanked by long, formal drapery and ornate, wooden architecture. Wooden columns protrude from the center of each side of the room, serving to separate the room into two distinct areas. One area contains a semi-circular arrangement of tables where government officials preside over the meetings, and the other area (approximately five feet from where the Council tables sit) consists of long rows of chairs where members of the community sit and watch the proceedings (see Figure 1). The rows of chairs are divided in half by a narrow aisle at the end of which stands a podium that citizens use when speaking to Council.

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Figure 1.

Council Chambers.

There are two sets of heavy, mahogany doors that lead to Council Chambers: the public door that citizens must use to access Council Chambers and the private door that government officials use to access Council Chambers.

The council meetings are run by the mayor or, in his absence, the council president or another council member who runs the meeting according to an agenda, which is comprised of 12 regular items of business: ³ Call to Order, Pledge of Allegiance, Roll Call, Public Hearing, Approval of the Minutes, Correspondence, Public Discussion, Report of City Manager, Consideration of Emergency Agenda Items, Consent Agenda, Legislation, and Adjournment. Although government officials are permitted to participate in the majority of the agenda items, the general public is only permitted to participate in two of the 12: public hearings and public discussions. While the public discussion was a regularly occurring agenda item, public hearings only occurred when council members decided to pursue legislation and were ready to vote on the item at a city council meeting. Participation by citizens in only one or two items, then, was rather unequal to the rather unlimited participation of government officials in the 12 regularly occurring agenda items.

Results

City council meetings are important for a community because they are the official meetings where city business transpires, and they are the public place where voting occurs and where proceedings are placed on official, public record. They are also one of the few meetings accessible to all citizens and one of the few places where citizens are given an opportunity to participate in city policy.

While the Huddie Park council meetings were accessible in that there were two times set aside for citizen participation, access tended to be limited and controlled by government officials. Although (i) the importance of communication with citizens was publicly emphasized in this community, (ii) citizen participation was solicited for the council meetings, and (iii) citizens had access to the meetings and opportunities to participate, their participation was constricted significantly: ‘they were confined to contributing to the discourse on only two occasions, they were limited to 5 minutes during these two occasions, and they were limited to certain kinds of discourse on these two occasions’ (Farkas, 2013: 91). Citizens were also ‘physically separated from government officials, they were referred to as audience members, and they had numerous rules to follow in order to participate’ (p. 91). Government officials, then, controlled citizen discourse during council meetings by determining what citizens could say, where they could say it, when they could say it, how they could say it, and how long they could take to say it.

Government officials exercised their power by regulating and restricting the discourse of participants within the immediate context of Council Chambers. Specifically, they controlled the topics of discussion and the sequence of exchanges during government and citizen interaction. Government officials also controlled the legislative process from inception to implementation, and although the items of legislation that government officials decided to pursue eventually came to the council meetings for public input, the process leading up to such council meetings was controlled by government officials and typically did not involve the public. Government officials also controlled the creation of the agenda for the council meetings – the topics of discussion permitted during the meetings – and the production and use of texts and documents that were employed during council meetings. The legislative process and the creation of the agenda and other important documents for the council meetings were not accessible to the general public; thus, citizens had little opportunity to participate in the events, activities, and creation of documents that affected the topics that were covered during council meetings and the manner in which the meetings were run.

The remainder of the article discusses control of discourse in the immediate context of the council meetings, specifically the types of discourse used and the exchanges between government officials and citizens. The article then discusses the larger context in which the meetings occur, specifically the legislative process leading up to public hearings and culminating in city policy and the planning, production, and use of the agenda, the principle document that served to control topics and discussion during the council meetings.

Control of discourse during public hearings

Public hearings are official proceedings that government officials are required to conduct in order for the general public to have the opportunity to present their views on legislative policy up for consideration by city council. Public hearings typically occur as one of the first major items during council meetings, and they are one of the two opportunities that the general public is allocated for participation. In the 5 March council meeting two public hearings occurred, and the exchange from the first public hearing shows that three citizens attended the council meeting and participated in the hearing.

As the exchange above indicates, the public hearing begins with the Mayor opening the public hearing with a performative utterance where he states that the public hearing is open, and the act of stating it makes it so. The mayor follows this act with an instruction for citizens: if they want to participate, they must first state their names. Finally, the mayor asks if anybody has a comment, which serves to open the floor and signal that citizens have permission to participate by coming to the podium and making their statements.

These three moves – where the mayor opens the hearing, provides a set of instructions, and permits citizen participation – exemplify a typical public hearing opening. The public hearing does not begin until a government official declares it to begin, until the official provides a set of rules for participation to the general public and until the official formally opens the floor for participants. This set of procedural practices tends to place government officials as the participants with the power to initiate discourse and dictate when and how the general public participates. These ritualized practices also tend to place citizens as responders to the discourse of government officials, those without the power to initiate discourse, and those who must adhere to the rules put forth by government officials. Although citizens are given the opportunity to participate in the public hearing, their participation efforts, as illustrated in the exchange above, are controlled by government officials, for they must wait until they are given permission to participate by government officials and must follow official instructions in order to participate or face possible ejection from the hearing. Their discourse efforts, then, are controlled by government officials, who position themselves as the authority to which citizens must comply. At no time are citizens authorized to open the topic or floor for discussion, and at no time do citizens hold the power to require government officials to follow their instructions for participation.

As the exchange above illustrates, the first citizen to participate in the hearing – after the mayor grants permission for participation – states her name and her opinion on the legislative item. The mayor follows her comment by thanking her. After the first citizen speaks, the mayor summarizes opinions from two letters he received and then opens the floor for the second time, thus giving permission for another citizen to speak. The second citizen participant begins speaking, but is promptly interrupted by a government official – the clerk of council – who asks him to state his name. Because the citizen didn’t follow the instructions from the mayor – to state his name before giving his statement – the interruption breaks the stream of discourse and serves as a reminder that there are rules he must follow in order to participate. The government official does not allow him to get away with ignoring the instructions and does not wait until he completes his statement to ask him his name; instead, the official interrupts his statement and requires him to follow the instructions before proceeding. According to Kennedy and Camden (1983), interruptions where the interrupter attempts to seize control of the process and topic of discourse by taking the floor at mid-utterance are considered power interruptions, which display the control and dominance of those in power. The citizen did not comply with the instructions given to him by the mayor and is, therefore, made to comply by the interruption from the government official. Following the interruption, the citizen acquiesces and states his name, thus submitting to authority and following the rules, and then continues with his statement. After the citizen’s statement, the mayor again terminates the exchange by thanking the citizen and then opening the floor to other citizens who may want to participate. The third citizen follows the rules, states his name, and gives a statement, which the mayor follows by ending the exchange, opening the floor again, and moving on to the next topic on the agenda when nobody steps forward to participate.

Thus, each sequence of exchanges between government officials and citizens follows an opening (by a government official), a response (by a citizen), and a closing (by the mayor): before a citizen participates in the public hearing, the mayor opens the topic for discussion and authorizes a citizen to speak, the citizen responds by participating, and the mayor closes by thanking the citizen, a move that serves to terminate the citizen’s turn at talk and close off any further statement. Government officials, then, control the opening and closing of discourse exchanges during the public hearing, and citizen responses become embedded within an opening and closing of a government official. This sequence of exchange places citizens as responders rather than initiators of discourse topics and tends to produce inequitable discourse exchanges where the first speaker holds the power as initiator and closer of the interaction and the second speaker lacks the power as responder. In his work, Fairclough (1989) discusses multiple ways in which power plays a role in dominating discourse and suggests that ‘allocation of turns at talking to participants may be regulated by a formula . . . or encounters may have to proceed according to a strict routine which lays down stages in a fixed sequence’ (p. 66). These exchange sequences where language serves as the ‘primary medium of social control and power’ (Fairclough, 1989: 3) have been identified both in courtroom and classroom discourse (Lakoff, 1990; Markee and Kasper, 2004; Stygall, 1994) where those in power dictate the turn-taking sequences of the discourse that ensues. As Markee and Kasper (2004) contend, ‘whereas ordinary conversation is a locally managed, equal power speech exchange system, teacher-fronted classroom talk is an unequal power speech exchange system, in which teachers have privileged rights to assign topics’ (p. 492) and control exchange sequences that are ‘initiated and closed down by teachers, who own the question and comment turns’ (p. 492).

The turn-taking sequence of the first March 5 public hearing is the turn-taking sequence that occurs during the majority of public hearings, and the exchanges in the second public hearing confirm this typical structure.

The exchange from the second public hearing follows the three-part initiating structure of the first public hearing: the mayor opens the hearing by reading the item and declaring the hearing open, thus issuing a performative utterance; he follows this act with an instruction for citizens, though this time, in this instruction, he is more explicit and includes more rules: if citizens want to participate, they must come to the podium, state their names and addresses, and abide by a five-minute time limit. Finally, the mayor asks if anybody has a comment, which serves to open the floor and signal that citizens have permission to participate by coming to the podium and making their statements. This second public hearing, thus, reveals further rules that citizens must follow in order to participate, and these rules require that citizens get up out of their seats and speak from a podium in the center of the room; that citizens state their names and addresses; and that citizens are limited to a five-minute time limit when they participate, so they need to make their statements within a five-minute time frame. These rules reflect the number of restrictions on citizen participation in the public hearings, and citizens are regularly interrupted for not following the rules and continuously reminded of the rules that constrain them. In his work, Van Dijk (1996) claims that social power and dominance are often ‘organized and institutionalized, so as to allow more effective control, and to enable routine forms of power reproduction’ (p. 85). The routine and highly scripted manner in which the public hearings are run tend to regiment and institutionalize public hearing practice so that they continually follow the same structure. Although one participant in the March 5 public hearing did not follow the rules, he was quickly put back on track, and the remaining participants adhered to the regulated structure. It is important to note that all participants in the council meetings are somewhat restricted by the formal and routinized manner in which the meetings generally proceed and by the constraint to keep the meetings moving along so that they can end at a reasonable time; however, government officials do not have time restrictions, restrictions that require them to state their names and addresses, or location restrictions placed on them during their participation efforts. Moreover, they do not need to ask permission to speak or need to follow instructions from other participants.

Control of the legislative process

The public hearing for the March 5 meeting involved legislation to change the name of a road, and by the time the legislative item reached the council meeting for the public hearing it had gone through a lengthy process that was regulated by government officials. Legislation ratified by government officials establishes city policy by becoming ordinances (directing specific action on an issue) or resolutions (temporary issues that reflect the views of government officials) on issues such as road name changes, residential and commercial zoning, signage, traffic lights, speed zones, liquor licenses, road construction, charter amendments, rates/fees, tax budgets, funding, and the like. The legislative process for each issue follows a distinct path, depending on the extent to which the issue involves previous policy, the time it takes to study the issue, and the time it takes to draft and fine-tune the ordinance to appease all decision-makers. Although the legislative process for each issue is complex and somewhat unique, the process can be broken down into four general phases. During the first phase, something becomes an issue, which means a problem or area of concern arises that needs government intervention. There are many ways an issue arises and different ways government officials become aware of an issue, but once government officials discover the issue, they are the ones to decide on whether or not to proceed. For instance, government officials can become aware of an issue based on their own experience or from informal conversations with others, or citizens can become aware of an issue and can inform government officials about it; if citizens discover an issue, they may have some access to the legislative process at the outset, especially when informing government officials about it, but once they report it to a government official, the issue is placed in the control of the government, where there is little to no access for the general public.

If council members decide to proceed with an issue, the issue comes to the second phase of the legislative process, where government officials discuss it, define it, and decide what action should be taken. During this phase, government officials draft the legislation into written form and fine-tune it through discussion at council workshop meetings or committee meetings. If the issue needs to be studied, government officials assign it to a specific committee who becomes responsible for researching and writing the legislation into an appropriate form, as either a resolution or an ordinance. Once government officials approve the legislation, they send it to the clerk of council who assigns it a number and places it on the council workshop agenda, where they discuss it and refine it even further.

During the third phase of the process, legislative items come to city council meetings for council members to publicly and officially vote on, and they are voted on immediately (for Emergency Legislation) or after three readings at three subsequent council meetings (for Regular Legislation). After the legislative item has been read for the first time at the council meetings, a public hearing is scheduled and advertised in the local newspaper, and the public hearing typically occurs during the third and final reading of the item of legislation at a council meeting. At this time, the general public learns about the item up for legislation and is given permission to attend the public hearing to comment on it. At the time of the public hearing, council members typically vote on the legislative item; thus, they vote on the item during the same meeting where citizens are granted the opportunity to make their comments and suggestions on it.

During the fourth and final phase of the legislative process, the decision from the council meeting is given to the chief executive officer – the city manager – to be implemented and enforced. At this stage in the process, the city manager delegates duties to the appropriate staff members who then carry out his orders. ⁵ (For an outline of the entire process, see Figure 2.)

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Figure 2.

Legislative process on Ordinance No. 96-174.

The issue for which the March 5 public hearing was held involved a name change for one of the roads in the city that actually retained three different names; the purpose of the legislation was to remove confusion for emergency personnel. From inception to approval, the road name change followed this general legislative process, though when it hit the third phase, council members sent it back to the second phase for further study. In total, the legislation took approximately six months – from September 1996 to March 1997 – to be passed. ⁶ The road name change became an issue when city staff – Police, Fire, and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) – came together and wrote a letter to the city requesting that the three road names for one stretch of road be changed to one name. ⁷ They wrote the letter on 24 September 1996, claiming that the three road names caused confusion for the safety forces, thus complicating their job and endangering citizens’ lives.

When the city manager received the letter, he made Council aware of the need for the legislative item by bringing it up at their weekly meeting. Council directed the city manager and his staff to draft an ordinance, and while the ordinance was being drafted, the clerk provided it with a number: Ordinance No. 96-174 entitled ‘An Ordinance Changing The Name Of Ravene Road To Ravene Street.’

In order to be formally introduced to Council, the ordinance came to a city council meeting for the first time on 2 October 1996 (the first of three required readings at a council meeting). At this time, Council referred the legislative item to the Municipal Planning Commission for research. While the Municipal Planning Commission was studying the ordinance, the item remained on the council agenda for a second reading on 24 October 1996 (the second of three required readings at a council meeting). On 20 November 1996, the ordinance came to a third council meeting for a third reading (the third of three required readings at a council meeting); at this meeting, the Municipal Planning Commission requested further study on the ordinance.

Council decided to grant the Municipal Planning Commission a 120-day extension; thus, they were given until 20 March 1997 to make a recommendation on the ordinance. Less than 60 days later – on 13 January 1997 – and after several meetings, the Municipal Planning Commission made a decision and a recommendation to Council on the ordinance; they proposed that the street be called Ravene Street South rather than the Ravene Street that the Safety Forces had originally proposed, and requested that council members change the ordinance to reflect this recommendation.

Nine days later, on 22 January 1997, council members placed the ordinance on the city council meeting agenda where it was read for the fourth time and was scheduled for a public hearing on 5 March 1997, six weeks later. After the council meeting, the city manager and his staff – EMS, Police, and Fire – wrote a second letter again requesting that the entire stretch of road be named Ravene Street and imploring Council not to accept the Municipal Planning Commission’s recommendation to name the road Ravene Street South for the main reason that the road runs east to west, which would cause further confusion for the Safety Forces, the residents, and the postal workers. Council agreed with the city manager and his staff and decided to keep the ordinance as originally written: ‘An Ordinance Changing The Name Of Ravene Road To Ravene Street.’

On 5 March 1997, the public hearing was held. During the hearing, three citizens gave their opinions on whether it should or should not be changed, and the mayor read two letters that he had received. Of the five citizens who participated in the hearing (three verbally and two through written correspondence), three were in favor of the ordinance and two were against it. On the same night that the public hearing was held, Council voted on the ordinance and passed it unanimously.

The entire legislative process for the road name change was controlled by government officials, and although the public were given the opportunity to state their opinions on the issue, their comments were scheduled on the same night that government officials voted on the issue and passed it into law. Thus, by the time citizens were permitted to participate, it was too late to deliberate and too late to affect decisions. Clearly, the public hearing for the legislative item occurred after decisions by government officials had already been made, for they were aware of the issue six months before it was scheduled for a public hearing and six months before citizens were permitted to state their opinions; they then voted on it within 30 minutes of when citizens made their comments.

Control of agenda and topics

Another form of dominance and control government officials employ concerns the topics of discussion authorized during council meetings. The topics of discussion during a council meeting take the form of an agenda, a numbered list of items to cover over the course of a meeting, and government officials establish and control the production of the agenda prior to the council meetings and the use of the agenda during the meetings. That is, government officials create the agenda and, therefore, establish and control the topics that are included on it; moreover, during council meetings, the government official who presides over the meeting uses the agenda to open up topics of discussion to participants and to control the content of discussion and the order in which the topics are discussed.

As Figure 3 indicates, the public hearing for the March 5 meeting is scheduled as the fifth topic on the agenda. According to the agenda, a number of topics precede the public hearing: the mayor calls the meeting to order (Call to Order), leads the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag and the Opening Prayer, Calls the Roll of council members, recording the names of the council members in attendance, and then opens the Public Hearing, and during this time government officials permit citizens to comment on the legislative item: the road name change. As discussed earlier, when citizens make comments during the public hearing, they are required to walk to the podium in the center of the room and give their comments within a five-minute time limit once they are acknowledged by the mayor to do so, and they must speak to the item of legislation for which the hearing is being held. During the March 5 meeting, three citizens make comments on the topic after which the mayor thanks them and closes the hearing. The meeting continues with the Approval of Minutes from the previous council meeting, Correspondence that officials have received and can share if they choose, Public Discussion, the second opportunity for citizens to speak on issues pertaining to the governing of the city, the Report of the City Manager, where the manager provides information on city matters and legislation items, a Liquor License for T[…] on which officials vote, the Consent Agenda, where officials give or deny consent to pass the listed legislation items without going through the regular legislation process, and officials then Consider Emergency Items to be Added to the Agenda, items that are missing or that arise at the last minute. During the Legislation portion of the meeting, the penultimate topic on the March 5 agenda, council members discuss and vote on the legislation items listed on the agenda before them, including the name change ordinance for which the public hearing is being held. The meetings end with an Adjournment, which signals the official closing of the meeting.

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Figure 3.

Council Meeting Agenda.

The agenda is important because it controls the topics and the content of the discourse that can occur during the meetings; if the topic is not on the agenda, then it is not recognized and not authorized during the meetings. Although some of the agenda items that occur in the March 5 meeting are routine agenda items (ones that occur regularly), government officials have the authority to change agenda items if they desire. For example, they have the authority to insert or eliminate topics on the agenda, which they can do prior to the council meeting or during the council meeting at which the agenda is operational. Citizens, on the other hand, can request that topics be placed on an agenda just as they can request that certain city issues be considered for legislation, but they do not have direct access to the agenda and cannot themselves insert or delete topics of discussion. There is also no guarantee that the requested item is placed on the agenda; they have no control over the request and no power to authorize changes to the agenda.

In addition to controlling the specific topics included on the agenda and access to the production of the agenda, government officials also control access to the agenda once it is completed. In fact, the agenda is distributed to government officials at least five days prior to a council meeting, while it is distributed to the general public only minutes before a council meeting begins; thus, government officials have time to examine the agenda well in advance of the council meetings, while the general public has just minutes. In addition to the agenda, government officials also receive what is called a ‘packet,’ a series of documents related to the agenda topics that are clipped to the back of the agenda. For instance, if one topic on the agenda is an ordinance, government officials are provided with a copy of the legislation proposal and any other associated documents (letters, memos, proposals, minutes, and the like). In fact, for the March 5 council meeting, the packet includes the agenda; a legislative memo (that includes the history of the road name change legislation item and its purpose); a copy of the road name change ordinance; a map that shows the location of the road; the letter from the city manager and city EMS, Fire, and Police staff; minutes from the previous council meeting; and other documents associated with other legislation items. At no time before the meeting is the general public provided with this information, though in principle they have access to it after the meeting when it is placed on public record in the mayor’s office. In this way, government officials not only have access to the agenda prior to a meeting, but they also have access to the context in which the legislation items occur and to other items essential to fully understanding the legislation.

In addition, the council meetings are run and the list of topics on the agenda is executed by a government official, and citizens cannot participate in the topics unless authorized by the mayor or government official running the meeting. In fact, each topic is ‘opened’ by the mayor or another government official presiding over the meeting, and it is only when the item is officially opened by government officials that citizens can participate (and citizens are only able to participate in two topics, public hearings and public discussions, while government officials are able to participate in all topics with few exceptions). While government officials are somewhat obliged to follow the topics that are opened by the mayor, they have the ability to make changes and discuss other items (which they have done on numerous occasions), whereas citizens do not. In fact, the Council rules allow council members to eject citizens from council meetings if they disregard such practice. In her work examining communication in development meetings, Hanak (1998) suggests that the role of the chairperson necessarily provides ‘the chairperson with control of topics and turns, which is a major instrument for exercising power’ (p. 36).

Conclusion

In his work, Van Dijk (1993) argues that the more access participants have and the more discourse and contextual aspects participants control or influence, the more power they hold and the more powerful they are, and that ‘lack of power is also measured by its lack of active or controlled access to discourse’ (p. 256). He also argues that even when present as participants, members of less powerful groups ‘may be more or less dominated in discourse’ (p. 260) and may have ‘their freedom of choice . . . restricted by dominant participants’ (p. 260). As he suggests, those in charge can allow or prohibit specific speech acts, regulate turn-taking, monitor the agenda, and set and change topics of discussion.

In theory, the Huddie Park public hearings are accessible because the general public is allowed to attend the meetings at which the hearings occur and are permitted to speak while the hearings are in session. However, the general public’s access is routinely restricted both during the hearings and outside of the hearings in the processes leading up to the council meetings at which the hearings occur. Restricted access for the general public commences well in advance of the public hearings due to government officials controlling and regulating the legislative and agenda-setting processes. Citizens do not have access to the planning and production of the agenda, nor do they have access to the entire legislative process through which public policy and city laws are enacted. Neither do they have access to the production or use of documents associated with the legislative process that would shed light on the history and context of a legislative item that is being considered during a public hearing. Restricted access for the general public culminates in their participation during the hearings where their discourse is controlled because (i) they must speak to the topic of discussion presented by a government official, (ii) they must follow an explicit and involved set of instructions dictated by government officials in order to speak, (iii) they are subject to being responders rather than initiators of discussion topics and exchange sequences, and (iv) their discursive responses are embedded within the discourse of government officials who dominate discourse sequences by initiating and closing each exchange with citizens.

These findings are consistent with other scholars’ findings of citizen participation in government discourse. Katz and Miller (1996) determined that interactions between government officials and citizens were unequal because government officials did not perceive the general public as equals. Consequently, government officials controlled the entire process, informed and educated the public about issues, and disseminated information to the public, but did not discuss issues or deliberate with the public, or allow the public to participate in decision-making. Although Waddell (1996) and Wells (1996) found that the participation efforts they studied had potential for equal and interactive discourse, the officials in charge of the process did not acknowledge the public’s contributions and effectively closed off access to deliberations and decision-making. Fiorino (1990) found that while public hearings allowed participation by the general population, they did not allow the public to participate equally with those in charge and did not allow the public to share authority or decision-making power.

Findings of citizen participation in government meetings reveal the lack of access citizens have to legislative deliberations and the control government officials command over decision-making processes. The findings of this study demonstrate the institutionalized and organized way in which public hearings are regulated by government officials and the complexities and obstacles the public would need to overcome in order to gain access, equalize participation, and change the process. More studies of citizen participation at the local level of government are needed to determine whether such complexities and barriers can be hurdled and to identify what possibilities, if any, exist for citizen participation at the local level of government.