The newly seated Fernandina Beach city commission wasted no time in making changes to future commission meetings regarding public comment and proclamations.
Fulfilling an election campaign promise, Mayor James Antun successfully led a motion to place public comments for items not on the agenda to the front end of the meeting.
Shortly after the election of 2022, that commission had moved public comment to the end of the agenda, meaning that speakers had to wait until the majority of agenda items had been addressed by the commission.
The second significant change involved proclamations, which recognize the contributions of organizations and individuals to the city and are read by the mayor at the start of each commission meeting.
The commission voted to eliminate reading the proclamations at meetings and instead will read those proclamations at locations associated with those being honored. A proclamation, for example honoring the Humane Society could be read at the Human Society's headquarters instead of at city hall.
Antun said by eliminating proclamations at commission meetings, it would give additional time for public comment.
"My suggestion for this was not to do away with proclamations, but to move them into the community so commissioners could show up to events and to this work with a little more hands on in the community," Antun said,
But not all commissioners agreed.
"Proclamations I think are an integral part of what we do as a city commission. And it's important to recognize everyone in the city," said Commissioner Genece Minshew. "Instead of doing away with them, and the timing and the amount of time, maybe we think about one or two in the meeting and then the rest of them could go out. I just think I'm not quite ready make that without some more thought and conversation."
Vice Mayor Darron Ayscue said proclamations would continue as before but presented outside of commission chambers.
"This isn't to stop proclamations. Whatever proclamations come through the city clerk's office, they can request a commissioner or the mayor or whoever and go out in the community and read the proclamation at their event," Ayscue said.
The proclamation vote was 4-1.