Shelter Island Reporter editorial: Five hour meetings don’t work
Not for the first time, the Shelter Island Town Board had a meeting on June 29 that lasted from 6 p.m. to close to 11 p.m.
We understand the Town Board has a lot on its schedule and is working hard to get work done. We know too that applicants want decisions as fast as possible. But such lengthy meetings are not working for Board Members, the public or anyone who might be called to represent clients.
For Town Board members who generally have a 9 a.m. work session the following morning, they can hardly be expected to have time to absorb comments from experts or the public after lengthy public hearings.
For hearings closed the night before, the Board generally plans the following morning to discuss what they heard, maybe to suggest changes to their thinking that can influence their actions on pending legislation. Exhaustion could result in some poor decisions.
For the experts paid by clients to support their applications, they often have to sit through hours of other hearings before they get to speak.
But worst of all, the public that arrives because they care about a particular issue sometimes have to wait long hours before they get to the issue of importance to them.
For more than two hours, people debated whether an ADU can be developed on an undersized lot currently zoned within the Near Shore and Peninsula Overlay District. The issues raised are significant.
Town Board members need time to absorb what they have heard, ask thoughtful questions and develop decisions that could have impacts much beyond the interests of a single applicant.
What’s more, the potentially long hearing on Sylvester Manor didn’t start until about 10:15 p.m. so anyone who wanted to comment had to wait through more than four hours to even get to the subject.
There has to be a better way.
Maybe aim to limit meetings to three hours and not pack agendas so tight. Public hearings are meant to impart information. They are not designed to demonstrate the stamina of participants.
