A highly controversial item that aimed to change the way city council meetings are run, and the public’s ability to participate, failed to move forward at Tuesday evening’s Long Beach City Council meeting.
These sweeping changes were proposed in response to California’s Senate Bill 707, passed on Oct. 3, 2025, which requires local government meetings to be accessible to residents through in-person and remote methods. Cities have until July 1 to provide this access and have a plan in place if the internet connection is interrupted during a public meeting.
As of now, residents can watch Long Beach City Council meetings remotely, but cannot give public comment unless in person. Councilmembers approved their plan to pause meetings for up to one hour if remote access is interrupted due to internet issues. However, a separate motion to change a variety of meeting components failed later in the evening.
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City staff said hybrid meetings will be more difficult to manage now that they will be managing public comment both in person and online. It is with this hybrid meeting requirement in mind that Long Beach’s Government Operations and Efficiency Committee suggested sweeping changes to the way city council meetings are run.
“Over the past week I’ve heard from many residents about concerns with this proposed change,” District 3 Councilmember Kristina Duggan said. “I think changes are needed as we implement this ordinance SB 707, but I don’t want to make a rash decision based on an arbitrary deadline that we’re imposing on ourselves.”
Every city councilmember said they have been receiving many comments from their constituents regarding this ordinance over the past week. Mayor Rex Richardson and Vice Mayor Roberto Uranga were not in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting.
The largest proposed change, which brought forward the most objections from residents, was to move item-based public comments to one section at the beginning of the meeting. This would represent a major shift from how meetings are run currently, where there is a space for public comment at the beginning of each item the council discusses.
“To diminish the time that people have to give public comments or the ability to give it at all because of timing is to diminish access to the First Amendment,” an East Village resident who identified themselves as X said. “By removing precious moments from when regular residents and community members are able to address you, you lean into the fascist federal government’s goals to take away any chance for public dissent and completely usurp the original intent of this bill.”
During this time, residents can speak for up to three minutes unless there are more than 10 people signed up to speak, in which case the time is cut down to 90 seconds.
The proposed ordinance would change agenda item-specific public comment to a space immediately after general public comment, instead of accompanying council discussion throughout the meeting. This ordinance aimed to reduce the time each resident speaks on an item from three minutes to 90 minutes.
“I teach hybrid for seniors and we manage just fine. One of them is 101 [years old],” said resident Nadai Tushnet. “The issue that I wanted to raise is the comment-by-item issue. That’s what’s important. The public also needs to hear the analysis and the comments and the staff reports, not just get access to the slides, but hear the staff report before we get to comment.”
While SB 707 requires the City to shift to a hybrid model and have a plan in place for interruptions, there is no requirement to change the way public comment is conducted.
Additional changes the ordinance suggested making included:
- Starting city council meetings at 4:30 p.m.
- Limiting ceremonials and presentations to three per meeting, for a maximum of five minutes each
- Signups for general public comment close at 4:30 p.m.
- Signups for agenda item-specific public comment close at 5:30 p.m.
Duggan voiced concern about only having one public comment, giving the speaker (the person in charge of running the meeting) the power to cut off public comment and cutting off public comment signups at 5:30 p.m.
City staff said another reason for moving public comment earlier was so residents don’t have to wait for hours to comment on one agenda item. Long Beach currently does not disclose what order they will be discussing items on the agenda, meaning residents oftentimes have to wait hours to hear an item they are interested in.
“Efficiency is important but efficiency should not come at the expense of meaningful public participation. The public is not a problem to be solved. The public is the reason these meetings exist.”
– District 1 resident Caroline Essex
If the additional changes were not passed, City staff said council meetings would keep running as is, but with a space for public comment for people in-person and remote. However, the number of speakers for general public comment would still need to be capped at 10 people, which City staff said they would offer to five people in-person and five people remotely, if possible.
“You lose nothing by waiting a couple of weeks and bringing this back and actually trying to implement a hybrid system and seeing what the problems are,” said resident Dave Shukla. “I have not heard any metrics related to the City’s previous experience in doing a hybrid system. You can withdraw it [the item] and save us all the trouble.”
The motion failed after the following votes:
Yes votes: Councilmembers Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, Suely Saro and Joni Ricks-Oddie
No votes: Councilmembers Mary Zendejas, Kristina Duggan, Megan Kerr, Cindy Allen and Daryl Supernaw.
