ALEXANDRIA, Va. — City Council voted Tuesday to defer a rewrite of the rules governing how residents speak at its meetings, sending the package back to staff until December after members could not agree on how to define who qualifies to speak longer and what counts as a personal attack.
Councilman Canek Aguirre had moved to adopt the resolution, seconded by Councilman John Taylor Chapman. By the end of nearly an hour of discussion, Aguirre, Mayor Alyia Gaskins and Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley had all said they would rather adopt it Tuesday. The motion to wait carried 4-3, with the three of them opposed.
"This will be deferred until December, and we will take it up at that point with the guidance that has been given," Gaskins said.
What is in the package
The resolution would fold the city's citizen participation policy and its public hearing and public comment protocol into council's existing rules of procedure. City Clerk Gloria Sitton said the goals were efficiency, accessibility and safety, and that the rewrite followed an assessment of the temporary chamber at Mark Center and looked ahead to the return to a renovated City Hall.
Under the changes, staff, applicants and appellants would each get 10 minutes to present, with up to three minutes for rebuttal. Sitton said there is no limit now.
"Currently, staff presents till they're finished. Applicants, appellants present till they're finished," she said. "We've been practicing using 10 minutes, but it's not 10 minutes."
Presentation files would have to be submitted two business days ahead for security and compatibility screening, and late files would not be displayed. Written testimony would be due to the clerk by 3 p.m. the day before a meeting; anything later would still go into the permanent record and to council after the meeting.
Speaker forms would require a full name, address, who the speaker represents and disclosure of any compensation. Signs would be capped at 8 by 24 inches, with 11 by 17 preferred, and allowed only on paper, cardboard or fabric. Megaphones, bullhorns, whistles, laser pointers, selfie sticks and drones would be barred from the chamber, along with foot stomping, heckling and clapping during public comment. Attendees could not approach the dais without permission.
The mayor's framing
Gaskins opened the item by saying there had been misinformation about it, and that the rules are not new. She said the clerk found versions dating to 1973, with updates in 1988, 2004, 2023 and 2025, and that the 1973 resolution already allowed a speaker to be stopped for comments that became irrelevant or unnecessarily repetitive.
Every neighboring jurisdiction has similar rules, she said, and some are stricter. In Prince William County, she said, a speaker cannot repeat the person before them.
Two speakers criticized the package at Saturday's public hearing. One called the restrictions on personal attacks, campaign speech and off-topic comments out of step with the city and said they would squeeze out citizen journalism. Another objected to giving applicants' attorneys formal rebuttal time, and thanked council for keeping civic associations at five minutes rather than three.
Aguirre said he was irritated by a moment at that hearing, when someone in the audience responded to the clapping provision by clapping. Applause is fine for proclamations and staff recognitions, he said; the restriction applies during public comment, so speakers can be heard, including by people with hearing aids.
Deputy City Attorney Christina Brown told council that under the First Amendment, council meetings are a limited public forum, meaning reasonable time, place and manner restrictions are allowed if they are viewpoint neutral. On campaign speech, she said the provision is aimed at people who use public comment as a platform to run for office. On personal attacks, she said critics had cited a 2001 Eastern District of Virginia decision, Bach v. School Board of Virginia Beach, that struck down similar language, but that the city's wording draws instead on a 2008 Fourth Circuit decision, Steinberg v. Chesterfield County Planning Commission.
The policy does not prohibit recording a meeting, Brown said, which is protected under state FOIA law.
City Attorney Cheran Ivery said the provision is about relevance. Speakers can criticize council members in the framework of their jobs, she said, but attacks unrelated to their roles are irrelevant in a limited public forum.
Where it came apart
Bagley offered an analogy for the personal attack provision: saying a policy you support is stupid is not a personal attack, while saying you are stupid is.
She said she was comfortable with that distinction, noting council members have absorbed comments that judges found to be threats. She also said Alexandria offers something the General Assembly does not, where there is no guaranteed right to speak, and pointed to the Braddock Road hearing, which ran 11 or 12 hours with more than 100 speakers, none chastised for repetition or for calling the idea bad.
Her concern was elsewhere. The draft extends the five-minute slot, now reserved for civic associations, to any resident-led or volunteer-driven entity whose core purpose is organizing residents, including neighborhood associations, block clubs, community development councils and tenant resident councils. Bagley said she could not tell who would qualify or who decides.
Gaskins defended the looser language. Groups like Tenants and Workers United bring large numbers of residents but are not civic associations, she said, and under current rules have to ask the mayor for the extra time.
Councilwoman Sandy Marks suggested adopting the deadline provisions, which she called no-brainers, and deferring the presentation limits and the decorum rules.
Ivery advised against it. "I highly recommend not passing this piecemeal," she said. "All of these documents work together. This is a one-shot deal."
Elnoubi wants it in writing
Councilman Abdel-Rahman Elnoubi said he agreed with the substance — no personal attacks, no off-topic comments — but wanted both defined on paper so the rules are enforced evenly rather than arbitrarily.
It is unfair, he said, to make the mayor decide on the spot what counts, and council cannot know who will hold the gavel in future years. Someone showing up in a couple of years will not have watched Tuesday's discussion, he said.
Chapman pushed back on the premise. Any council member can raise a point of order if they think something is out of order, he said, and then it falls to the presiding officer to rule. Laying out why something is a distraction, he said, is better than a list.
Chapman also asked staff to narrow one provision. The draft bars campaigning and election-related speech, and he said the second phrase goes too far in a city that runs its own elections. Residents asking why houses of worship serve as polling places are raising a legitimate question that would technically be out of order, he said. Brown said the city could strike the election-related language if that was council's will.
Aguirre was more cautious about cutting it, saying someone could claim they were discussing their own election.
Chapman also asked why selfie sticks are barred. Sitton said the recommendations came from public safety staff, and that in a full chamber a raised selfie stick or sign blocks sightlines. Gaskins said the last person who brought one blocked a neighbor's view for the whole meeting.
Ivery told council not to expect what Elnoubi was asking for.
"I'm not going to be able to give you a list of the things that are protected speech and a list of the things that are not," she said. "That's not the way the law works. It is a blurry line."
Councilwoman Jacinta Greene said she wanted to see the language before voting on it.
Aguirre then withdrew his motion. Elnoubi moved to defer, with Greene seconding, directing staff to return with more definition around personal attacks, off-topic comments, campaigning and the five-minute rule.
Bagley used her last turn to warn about what comes back. The more terms are defined, she said, the less nimble the rules become, creating a list of allowed and disallowed things to say. She recalled the Supreme Court's long struggle to define obscenity and the line that stood in for a definition — I know it when I see it — and said she would rather pass the package and trust the seven people on the dais.
Gaskins agreed, saying that trying to dictate every word is a more dangerous place to be than setting rules for the room.
Elnoubi said his vote was not opposition. "I'm deferring this not because I'm against anything in here," he said, adding that he expects it to pass when it returns.
On timing, Ivery said October is full. City Manager James Parajon suggested November, with December as a fallback. The motion set December.
