The Denver City Council could soon change the sign-up for its weekly public comment session to prioritize people who haven’t spoken at previous meetings.

If approved by the council, the proposal would send people who haven’t spoken at a comment session in the last 90 days to the top of the speaker list, followed by people who haven’t spoken in the last week. Those who spoke in the last week would be pushed to the bottom of the list.

“The reason for this change is just to give people an opportunity to speak who we haven’t heard from recently,” said Councilwoman Kendra Black, who sponsored the proposal. “We’ve had a number of people reach out to us saying they signed up for multiple weeks and didn’t get to speak.”

The City Council holds public comment sessions every Monday before the regular council meeting. The sessions are 30 minutes long, allowing speakers up to three minutes to talk about any city issue they want. The sign-up for the session is first-come first-served, except for people who spoke in the previous session.

Five Points lofts to be renovated as affordable housing in $1.25M project

The proposal would rely on the honor system, asking speakers to indicate on the sign-up sheet whether they have spoken at a recent comment session, Black said.

Council members discussed the proposal Wednesday during the council’s monthly operations meeting. Only Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca raised issues with the proposal.

“I do feel like this is a major change and it does limit some people from speaking,” CdeBaca said.

CdeBaca said the public comment sessions should be expanded to allow time for all speakers and criticized the proposal being brought up during the operations meeting, rather than a public committee meeting where community members could comment on the proposal.

Denver council to consider first overhaul of Board of Adjustment in 6 decades

Though Council President Stacie Gilmore defended discussing the proposal in operations, calling it a “very small change,” she agreed to consider scheduling a committee meeting and public comment for the proposal.

On Wednesday, the council also discussed its 2022 budget, which increased 21%, going from roughly $6.31 million in 2021 to $7.66 million in 2022. More than half of the increase – $700,000 – will go toward expanding operating funds for the 13 council district offices. Other increases include $235,000 for two new hires and $49,000 for interpretation services.

This year, each of the 13 council district offices have an operating budget of $313,820, up from $245,959 in 2021. Councilman Chris Hinds said this is one of the first budget increases the offices have received in several years.

“We had increases in costs when we didn’t have any increase in the budget,” Hinds said. “It sounds like a lot, but we had been eating all of the additional costs without any additional revenue for some time.”

Denver to hold community meetings on redistricting