BURBANK COUNCIL RETAINS TALK TIME.

Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Staff Writer

BURBANK - Instead of curtailing the amount of time the public has to speak, the Burbank City Council has decided to limit the time council members spend responding and to start council meetings a half-hour earlier each week.

The council had considered cutting the amount of time people are allowed to speak at the beginning of the council meeting from five minutes to three, saying the lengthy comment periods were pushing vital city business too late into the night.

But at their meeting Tuesday night, council members chose other alternatives to move the meetings along.

``There are people who probably are not the most eloquent speakers around, and I happen to be one of them so I identify with them,'' Mayor Bill Wiggins said Wednesday. ``A good public speaker would be able to make their points, be concise.

``But from someone who may not be schooled in public speaking it may take them a bit longer to get the point across,'' he said. ``They may be nervous.''

Several of the people from the community who had opposed cutting public comment time came back to the podium during the public comment period at the end of the meeting to thank the council for rejecting it.

``I congratulate you,'' said longtime resident Mike Nolan, a regular speaker at council meetings. ``I know it isn't easy and I know plenty of people make remarks to you. . . . I appreciate the way you handled the discussion and I hope it works.''

Some of the changes the council will make can be implemented without a formal vote.

Beginning immediately, the council members are expected to limit their first round of responses to five minutes each but will get additional time after the entire panel has had a chance to speak.

And the presentations and honors that are normally given at the beginning of the meeting will be better scheduled so that there will only be a few each week.

The council will vote formally at an upcoming meeting on an ordinance to change the starting time for meetings from 7 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

During deliberations Tuesday, the council rejected several other legal options for expediting meetings.

Those included enforcing a ``last call'' for comments cards and changing the first comment period to three minutes and the second to five minutes, so people would continue to have a total of eight minutes during the open sessions.

Also on Tuesday night, the council agreed to consider a future ordinance giving them the ability to make such small policy changes without having to go through the formal charter amendment process, as they do now.