"Of course, Council will comply with all final decisions of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and with all statutory requirements," Verna said in a news release, "and if that means changing our procedures to provide a public comment period during Council sessions, we will do so."
Property owner Stan Alekseev and the organization representing the city's small residential landlords, the Homeowners Association of Philadelphia, or HAPCO, sued the city in 2007, complaining that they had been prevented from speaking at a Council meeting on April 26, 2007.
Alekseev and HAPCO lost in the Court of Common Pleas and in Commonwealth Court, but Supreme Court Justices Thomas G. Saylor, J. Michael Eakin, Max Baer, and Joan Orie Melvin reversed, declaring that public comment could not be delegated to a "special meeting" such as a hearing.
"There is simply no authorization in the act . . . for delegation of the obligation to entertain public comment to some body other than a board of council," Saylor wrote in a seven-page opinion.
Entertaining it may well be.
"It would certainly be a different kind of democracy than we have now," said Amy Dougherty, executive director of the Friends of the Free Library, whose nonprofit has had many occasions to address Council at budget time. "It would be fairly chaotic, but it would be cool."
Former Councilman Angel Ortiz said he had tried to get Council to hold more hearings in the community or after hours to increase participation. The ruling will increase participation, Ortiz said, but not necessarily from the public at large.
"It will be much better theater, but I think it will make the process lengthier, and I don't think more substantive," Ortiz said. "You're going to have a line there, and you're going to have any aspiring politician come in and think they're the next city councilperson."
