Summary
Attending an Austin City Council meeting is a great way to make your voice be heard at the local level. We've put together some tips to make attending your first meeting easier.
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Attend an Austin City Council meeting!
The Austin Common’s Giselle Rodriguez recently attended her first-ever Austin City Council meeting. Watch the video below to follow along with her… and keep scrolling for additional info about attending an Austin City Council meeting.
PS – If the video below doesn’t load, you can watch the video on YouTube here.
More info
Austin City Hall is located downtown at 301 W 2nd St.
Council meetings are usually held on Thursdays. You can look through the complete Council meeting schedule for the year here.
Council meetings generally start at 10am and can last all day long. Agendas are posted in advance so you know what Council will be voting on and discussing.
You can watch meetings in-person at City Hall or stream them online via ATXN.
If you want to speak on a specific agenda item, there are two ways to do that…
Online – Registration usually opens up at 10am the Monday before the meeting and closes at noon the day before the meeting.
Or in-person at the kiosks located in the lobby of City Hall. Registration opens up shortly after noon the day before the meeting and closes 45 minutes before the meeting begins.
As a speaker, you can choose to speak either in-person or remotely (by calling in). Just note that you can only sign up to speak remotely online (not using the City Hall kiosks).
If you want to speak at a Council meeting about something that is not on the agenda, you can sign up for something called Public Communication. Time is set aside each Council meeting at noon for a maximum of 10 people to speak on the topics of their choice. Registration for Public Communication usually opens up 21 days before the meeting (and closes 14 days before the meeting). You can sign up online (and look through the sign up schedule) here.