Public Comments in Red Wing
August 9th, 2026
City of Red Wing, and particularly the Council Administrator, are plugging ahead in effort to limit public comment. The meeting of July 29, 2026 was disturbing to put it mildly. There will be further discussion tomorrow, August 10, 2026.
Be there or be square.
Where did this attempt to limit public comment come from? Two things happened at previous meetings:
- I’d noticed that language stated at the beginning of public comment was limiting public comment beyond what was in the Council’s Rules & Procedures. After I realized that, I sent an email to Council President, the one saying the limiting words, and then to the full Council. The matter was referred to the City Attorney and excess language removed from the prelude to Public Comments.
- A request for a moment of silence was requested by a commenter, and was declared out of order and it escalated to removal from the meeting (!) and a citation for disorderly conduct, then dropped later that evening.
- At an earlier meeting, a strong objection to repeated mispronunciation of a name (I’ve observed this with repeated mispronunciation of Alan’s name as MUE-ller not MULL-er, despite his multiple public comments before which he recites his name and correct pronunciation of his name!)
At the July 29, 2026 Council meeting, four options were presented by the Council Administrator to the Council at the July 29, 2026 meeting, three severely altering Public Comment:
WHAT? And this specific change requested:
WHAT? Yes, that’s direct cut & paste from page 2-3 of the Council Administrator’s Staff Report:
WTAF? Quick, it’s Data Practices Time.
There was an Agenda Request, very specific, very limited in scope — and during the extensive discussion during the July 29, 2026 meeting of the Council Administrator’s Report and the options presented, Kim Biese said “I didn’t ask for this” though no more. Here’s the form:
I specifically wanted to see this Agenda Request after I’d heard Kim Biese state “I didn’t ask for this.” Good thing I did, this verifies the very limited nature of the request, focused on “decorum” (discuss what they can and cannot say) and process suggestion about using cards so names aren’t pronounced (seems lame to me). So how did it broaden to this attempt to limit and/or eliminate public comment?
After I’d sent the June 8, 2026 emails regarding the limiting language as a prelude to Public Comment, I sent another on July 27 after reading the Council Administrator’s Report days before the meeting:
Some time after Kim Biese had said “I didn’t ask for this” the City Attorney, addressing the public comment discussion, brought up that I’d raised the inconsistency between the language stated and the language of the Council Rules & Procedures. That the offending language was deleted from the pre-Public Comment statement made it clear that this was taken under advisement and changed! This was verified via the response to my Data Practices Act Request:
We know the City Attorney’s opinion is privileged:
And this:
And then this:
In short, the language to address this is already there, as noted by City Attorney Amy Mace:
I included a reference to this information in the very last line of the staff memorandum without disclosing any of the specific details about the legal opinion. The line is as follows, “Based on a legal opinion from City Attorney Amy Mace, the City Attorney believes the City Council can continue to prohibit personal attacks during the public comment period, and there are court cases from other jurisdictions that provide support for prohibiting personal attacks.”
And followed by this email:
The key words here are: “This statement already provides the Council President with the necessary authority to maintain order in the Council Chambers, and staff can administratively provide a brief step-by-step process for you to follow if something like last week happens again.”
Is Chief Sather’s Memo CONFIDENTIAL? What’s his take on this?
FYI, this limiting language is in Council Rules and Procedures already — and it’s the Council President’s responsibility to control the meeting:
Here are links to the recordings of the July meetings:
- July 13, 2026, City Council Meeting: https://redwingmn.portal.civicclerk.com/event/3947/media
- July 27, 2026, City Council Meeting: https://redwingmn.portal.civicclerk.com/event/3980/media
Much ado about nothing, nothing that isn’t already covered by existing Council Rules and Procedures, and unrelated to the Agenda Item Request. And we can see where this came from — NOT direction of the City Council. The City Attorney Opinion is confidential, but it’s clear that the City Attorney said that it was already covered.
Just STOP with these efforts to eliminate public comment.
FYI, what this feels like, what this looks like, is a rehash of Pohlman’s REJECTED/WITHDRAWN/SIDELINED Ordinance 115:
Ordinance #115 LTE in Republican Eagle December 8th, 2017
Red Wing’s Ordinance #115 – Why? December 1st, 2017
And from Massachusetts, a later court decision: