This protocol is designed to guide the Chairman of
the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in conducting
public workshops and meetings of the Commission.
(1) Notice and Agenda
(2) Quorum
(3) Official Action
(4) Obtaining and Assigning the Floor
(5) Public Comment at Workshops and
meetings
(6) Minutes
(7) Disruption of Commission Meetings
(8) Complaints Against Commissioners or
Staff
(9) Floor Amendments that Differ or Conflict with
Staff Recommendation
(1) Notice and Agenda of Commission
meetings:
The Commission has adopted the Uniform Rules of
Procedure to govern the notice and agenda requirements of meetings.
Under the Uniform Rules, there shall be at least seven days notice
of any public meeting, hearing or workshop by publication in the
Florida Administrative Weekly, Rule 28-102.001, F.A.C. There
shall be an agenda which specifies the items to be considered at
the meeting, hearing or workshop. The Chairman may make specific
changes in the agenda, Rule 28-102.001, F.A.C., after it has been
made available for distribution only for "good cause" shown.
The Commission staff posts all Commission Meeting notices, agendas
and background information on its website in advance of the
meeting.
(2) Quorum:
Under the Robert's Rules of Order, a
quorum for any public meeting at which official agency action will
be taken is a majority of the full membership of the Commission,
which is four members.
(3) Official Action of the
Commission:
Any matter brought before the Commission for
official action must be done by motion. The steps by which a motion
is brought before the Commission and acted upon are as follows:
(a) A Commissioner makes a motion.
(b) Another Commissioner must second the motion.
(c) The Chairman opens the motion to discussion.
(d) The Chairman puts the question, that is, puts the motion to a
vote (generally, the Chairman should ask for an affirmative and
negative vote but on minor or noncontroversial motions, may ask for
a negative vote.)
(e) The Chairman announces the result of the vote.
(4) Obtaining and assigning the
floor:
To provide for an orderly interaction between
Commissioners, staff and members of the public during Commission
meetings and workshops, there are basic procedures under
Robert's Rules of Order for "
Obtaining and Assigning the Floor."
The procedures are:
(a) Before any Commissioner, employee or member of
the public may make a motion or speak, he or she must obtain the
floor, that is, be formally recognized by the Chairman. Once
recognized by the Chairman, that person has the exclusive right to
be heard at that time. If the person is an employee or a member of
the public (entered information in the speaker database-located at
the FWC registration desk), he or she approachesto the microphone.
The Chairman recognizes the person by their full name.
(b) Only the Chairman may assign the floor. Other
Commissioners, employees or members of the public shall not assign
the floor.
(c) Anyone who wishes to address the Commission
must register their information at the FWC registration desk.
Anyone not recognized by the Chairman but who wishes to speak while
another person has the floor, is out of order.
(d) Anyone recognized by the Chairman shall speak
only at the microphone to assure that his or her remarks may be
heard and for the preservation of the remarks in the audio
recording and meeting minutes.
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(5) Public Comment at Commission
workshops and meetings:
All persons who request an opportunity to speak at
a Commission workshop or meeting will be allowed to speak within
the following Commission guidelines: The Chairman will, where
appropriate, encourage members of organizations to donate their
time to a representative of their organization to speak on their
behalf. The Chairman will ask all speakers to refrain from
repeating comments from previous members of the public. When
a large number of people wish to speak, the Chairman may limit the
time for each speaker, or the time allotted to public comment on
specific agenda items, in order to ensure that all speakers are
heard within the time allotted for the meeting.
Commission Workshops
The primary purpose of the workshop is to allow
staff an opportunity to brief the Commission on issues of interest
and allow the Commission to solicit such information and advice
from staff as may be necessary. Consistent with this purpose,
public comment during the workshop should ordinarily be limited to
the portion of the agenda specifically set aside for that
purpose. As circumstances may dictate, the Chairman is free
to impose time limitations on speakers and allow for the pooling of
speaking time by organizational representatives, consistent with
the guidelines set forth below for Commission meetings.
Commission Meetings
In order to assure meaningful and orderly public
comment at the Commission meeting, the following guidelines may be
implemented at the discretion of the Chairman:
(a) At the Commission meeting, public comment, if
any, will be taken immediately after staff presentation of each
item appearing on the "Items Requiring Action" portion of the
agenda. After hearing public comment on an item, the Commissioners
shall take appropriate action on the issue and then move to the
next item.
(b) A member of the Commission staff will manage
the list of registered speakers during the public meeting. The list
will indicate which item the speaker wishes to comment on, the name
of their organization, and whether a person wishes to be heard
through a representative. The information is listed in the
order that the speakers registered, consistent with the order of
the meeting agenda items, and the Vice Chairman shall announce each
speaker in that order.
(c) If the Chairman has imposed a time limit for individual
speakers, that time limit should be applied uniformly and each
speaker shall be allowed to speak up to three minutes. The
Chairman may impose a time limit for all public comment on any
specific agenda item in order to ensure that all speakers are
provided an opportunity to speak within the time allotted for the
Commission meeting.
(d) If a speaker is representing five or more
individuals in attendance at the meeting, the Chairman may pool all
the speaker representatives to represent their speaking time.
The speaker representative will be allowed no more than fifteen
minutes. The names of individuals in an organization that
donated their time may be announced by the Vice Chairman.
(e) A Commission staff member will keep time for
each speaker and inform the Chairman when the speaker's time has
expired. The Commission may use such timing devices as may be
practicable to ensure that all speakers stay within the time
limit.
(f) The "Public Comment on Items Not on the Agenda"
portion of the Commission meeting agenda will be reserved for
public comments concerning agenda items that do not require
Commission action, or general public comments concerning items not
appearing on the meeting agenda. Time limits for speakers shall be
no more than three minutes or as otherwise determined by the
Chairman in accordance with this protocol.
(g) The Chairman shall encourage all
prospective speakers to avoid repetitive statements, to submit
written comments in lieu of speaking and to defer their time to
representatives, in order to streamline the public comment
process.
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(6) Minutes
Under the Robert's Rules of Order (Ninth
Edition), the minutes of meeting are a synopsis of what was done at
a meeting. Minutes are not meant to be a transcription of all
that was said at a meeting. Minutes are prepared by the
Commission Secretary who shall perform the duty impartially.
The Sunshine Law requires that minutes of a meeting
of a commission be promptly recorded and open to public
inspection. The adoption of the minutes, including any
corrections, must be done in a properly noticed open meeting.
The term "open to public inspection" in the Sunshine Law has not
been clearly defined. However, it could be expected that the
term public inspection could be interpreted to mean that the public
has the right to make public comments on the minutes at the open
meeting. Nevertheless, such public comment does not have to
be received at the time the minutes are discussed or adopted, but
can be appropriately provided at some other point of the meeting,
such as, at "Presentations from the Public." Because the
minutes of the Commission meetings are prepared by the Commission
Secretary, it is unnecessary for the commission to engage in debate
about a proposed correction or amendment until the Commission
Secretary and Executive Director have had the opportunity to review
any proposed corrections or amendments to the minutes. In
this review, the responsibility of the Commission Secretary is to
make sure the minutes accurately reflect what was done; this does
not mean the minute must contain a record of everything that was
said, or someone's version of what was said. Public
suggestion to augment (as opposes to correct) the minute should, in
general, be rejected: minutes should reflect only the secretary's
unbiased account of what was done. However, if a member of
the public wishes to offer a correction of the minutes, they may do
so in writing and this request shall be referred to the Commission
Secretary for review.
Thus, under Florida law, the need to receive and
consider public comment may be balanced with the equally important
need for orderly meetings with full deliberation by
Commissioners.
(7) Disruption of Commission
meetings
(a) The following statement should be read aloud by
the Chairman prior to the start of a meeting if there is reason to
believe persons in attendance may attempt to disrupt the
meeting.
"THIS IS A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE FLORIDA FISH AND
WILDLIFE CONSERVATION COMMISSION. AS SUCH, ALL MEMBERS OF THE
PUBLIC ARE INVITED TO ATTEND AND EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS. THE
COMMISSION IS AUTHORIZED TO ENACT REASONABLE POLICIES TO ENSURE THE
ORDERLY CONDUCT OF THIS MEETING. ACCORDINGLY, ANY PERSON
WHOSE SPEECH OR CONDUCT DISRUPTS THE BUSINESS OF THIS MEETING WILL
BE ASKED TO LEAVE."
(b) Disrupting the meeting is conduct or speech
that prevents the Chairman from proceeding through the agenda at a
normal pace or prevents other persons from expressing their views,
such as speaking without being recognized.
(c) The content of what someone says, or the words
used, are normally protected by the United States and Florida
Constitutions. However, if the words used call for illegal conduct
or have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person
to whom they are directed, the speech is not protected and the
person should be asked to refrain from making such comments and if
the speaker refused to refrain, he or she should be asked to leave
the meeting or be removed.
(d) The use of profanity is not grounds to ask
someone to leave. The use of profanity may very well be part of the
overall disruptive behavior by someone, in which case he may be
asked to leave.
(e) If someone continues disruptive behavior and
refuses the Chairman's request to stop or to leave the meeting
room, the Chairman has several options:
1. The Chairman may suspend the meeting
indefinitely or terminate the meeting altogether (terminating the
meeting may be a viable option at the workshop wherein no official
actions are taken).
2. The Chairman may direct that the defiant person or persons who
persist in disruptive conduct be removed from the meeting room by a
law enforcement officer (but not a FWC officer). Normally, the
person should not be arrested unless he or she actually struck
someone and that person wishes to press charges.
NOTE: Generally, protestors wish
to generate attention and media coverage, not cause a riot. For
this reason, the Commission should avoid over-reaction which
provides the protestors even more attention.
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(8) Complaints against Commission
employees or Commissioners
If any speaker at a Commission workshop or meeting
accuses a Commission employee of wrongdoing, the Chairman should
immediately, without further inquiry or fact-finding, refer the
matter to the Executive Director for an appropriate investigation
by the Inspector General. If any speaker verbally attacks or shows
disrespect to a Commissioner at a workshop or meeting, the Chairman
may find such conduct to be out of order and, if so found, must
advise the speaker to refrain from such comments or else forfeit
his privilege to speak. (If the speaker refuses to abide by the
Chairman's request, the Chairman may take action in accordance with
Paragraph Six (6) of this memorandum on Disruption of Meetings). If
a speaker complains about conduct or behavior of a Commissioner,
which may constitute nonfeasance, misfeasance or malfeasance in
office, the Chairman should advise the speaker to direct the
complaint to the Governor's Office for further investigation.
(9) Floor Amendments to rules that
significantly differ or conflict with staff recommended action
In the event that a motion is made at a Commission
meeting that differs or conflicts significantly from staff
recommended action on a rule, the Chairman should, in consultation
with the Executive Director, direct appropriate staff to assess and
report on the consequences of such proposed action prior to a final
vote on the matter.
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