Corpus Christi At-Large Councilman Roland Barrera said the move also provides more flexibility for residents.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Corpus Christi City Council has once again changed the timing of public comment at its meetings.

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Over the summer, public comment was moved from noon to 5:30 p.m. Now, council members have voted to move it back to noon.

Corpus Christi At-Large Councilman Mark Scott said the change should help meetings run more efficiently.

“The concern was when we had it at 6:30, we would have to stop the public business, do up to three hours of public comment, then go back into issues like water, such that you weren’t making decisions until close to midnight. The thought was that just wasn’t good public policy,” he said.

Another change involves how much time speakers are given. Scott said the update was meant to ensure fairness.

“If you show up, you get three minutes. It was a bit of an issue that we gave Corpus Christians three minutes and non-Corpus Christians one minute. But the thought was you may not live in Corpus Christi, but we may serve you, like in water. So we just went to three minutes, and that makes it easier,” he said.

Corpus Christi At-Large Councilman Roland Barrera said the move also provides more flexibility for residents.

“It allows the public to either speak at noon or during the agenda item, whereas in the past, if they came in at 5:30 and it was something they couldn’t make it to and they wanted to speak on that item, then it would have already passed,” he said.

Barrera said he hopes the change will help reduce the number of lengthy and heated meetings.

“The challenge we were having before is that when we would have contentious items, sometimes there were paid activists that would come in, and it would just play for a really, really long meeting. And I think that’s why we kind of wanted to break it up. But I think if we’re looking at the one that was most productive, the way we had it in the past was probably a little bit better,” he said.