Have something to say to City Council, but can’t make it all the way to City Hall for their meetings? The city’s Remote/Virtual Citizen Communication program is now available at nine public libraries across the city.
Here’s how it works:
- If you have a new idea, opinion, or issue you want to present to City Council, you can sign up to participate in something called General Citizen Communication. During every City Council meeting, at noon, time is set aside for up to 10 people to participate in General Citizen Communication.
- If you’d like to participate, all you have to do is sign up in advance of the meeting with the City Clerk’s Office. Simply send the meeting date, your name, contact information, and location (either at City Hall or at a participating library) to the Clerk’s Office here. You can also call them at 512-974-2210. General Citizen Communication registration opens at 9am 14 days before a City Council meeting. You can look through a full schedule of the year’s Council meetings (and when to sign up for General Citizen Communication) here>>
- On the day you have signed up to speak, show up at the library you have chosen around 11:45am and everything should be all set up for your virtual Citizen Communication. A full list of participating libraries can be found here>>
Some things to note:
- You will likely only have three minutes to speak, so be concise and practice once or twice before the meeting to ensure that your speech is short enough to get your entire point across in time.
- General Citizen Communication is different than signing up to speak on specific agenda items at a City Council meeting. That can still only be done by showing up at City Hall and completing an electronic speaker registration form at one of the kiosks in the lobby of City Hall.