Discon says ‘no’ to talk of upcoming Monroe St. overlay ordinance
Does ruling set bad precedent for future meetings and free speech?
Precedent allows chair to put any topic off-limits moving forward
Government meetings need rules.
Without them, city councils could never finish an agenda. Time limits, maintaining decorum and keeping discussion orderly are all reasonable restrictions that allow public business to be conducted efficiently.
The City of Mandeville has long had those kinds of rules, and nobody seriously disputes them.
What deserves closer examination, however, is what happened during Thursday night’s City Council meeting.
Before public comment even began, Councilman-at-Large Scott Discon, who now serves as council chairman, announced that citizens could not use the general public comment period to discuss anything appearing anywhere on that evening’s agenda, including Ordinance 26-27, the proposed low-traffic overlay district affecting the Monroe Street corridor. Although the ordinance was only being introduced to satisfy legal notice requirements and would receive no debate or vote that evening, the chairman ruled it was nevertheless off limits because it appeared on the agenda.
District II Councilman Kevin Vogeltanz immediately questioned that interpretation because he knew that former City Councilman — and former political opponent of Mr. Discon in the 2024 At-Large race — Ernest Burguières intended to talk about the ordinance during the public comment period.
Mr. Vogeltanz’s understanding — and he was the council member who originally authored the rule — was that the restriction was never intended to prohibit discussion of ordinances that were merely being introduced. Rather, its purpose was much narrower.
For years, before the council moved general public comment to the beginning of meetings, that comment period occurred at the very end. There was an unwritten understanding that citizens should not use those final three-minute comments to rehash matters the council had already spent hours debating and voting upon earlier in the evening.
Imagine a controversial ordinance drawing 100 speakers before the vote. Once the council voted, the issue was procedurally finished. The intent of the unwritten practice, which was later codified in Resolution 24-44, was simply to avoid having those same 100 speakers line up again at adjournment and repeat the entire debate.
In other words, the rule wasn’t designed to limit what citizens could talk about. It was designed to limit how many opportunities they had to talk about the same issue during a single meeting. That’s a very different objective and an important distinction here.
From unwritten practice to written rule
When the council adopted its Rules of Procedure in 2024 as Resolution 24-44, that long-standing practice was reduced to writing by describing the final public comment period as applying to “non-agenda” items. That seems to have been a poor choice of words; perhaps “non-voting-agenda items” would have avoided ambiguity.
At the time, general public comment still occurred after the meeting’s business had concluded.
But circumstances have changed.
Today, Mandeville’s general public comment occurs before any council business is conducted. The same words now produce a very different result than they did when they were written.
When intent and interpretation diverge
Thursday’s dispute illustrates exactly why.
The ordinance in question was not scheduled for debate. It was not scheduled for a vote. Citizens would have no later opportunity during that meeting to address it. Yet because its title appeared on the printed agenda for introduction only, the chairman ruled the topic off limits. Mr. Vogeltanz challenged that ruling, but the council voted to uphold the chair on a 3-2 vote, with only Mr. Vogeltanz and Councilman-at-Large Jason Zuckerman voting to overrule.
Ironically, the procedural fight itself consumed approximately eight and a half minutes.
Had Mr. Burguières simply been allowed to use his allotted three minutes to discuss the ordinance, the meeting almost certainly would have moved on more quickly.
If efficiency was the objective, the ruling accomplished precisely the opposite. If not, then the ruling very effectively shut down public feedback on a potentially important issue to the city.
Where does it end?
More importantly, the precedent now raises a larger question.
Time limits regulate how long someone may speak.
Decorum rules regulate how someone may speak.
But prohibiting someone from speaking because of the subject they wish to discuss regulates what someone may speak about.
That is an entirely different category of governmental action.
The principle cuts both ways. During the April 9, 2026, City Council meeting, then-Chairman Zuckerman permitted four citizens to discuss the controversial water and sewer billing issue during general public comment despite that matter also appearing on the meeting agenda. Mr. Zuckerman said he never questioned their right to speak that night because the water and sewer rates issue wasn’t a voting-item on the agenda.
If that interpretation was appropriate then, citizens are left to wonder why a different standard now applies to Mr. Burguières or Ordinance 26-27. The constitutional principle should not depend on which chairman is holding the gavel, which issue happens to be controversial, or who the speaker is going to be.
If Mr. Discon had the same rule interpretation in April when he was not chairman, why didn’t he raise a point of order and object to those four citizens speaking about water rates during public comment that night?
No one is arguing that the council lacks authority to establish orderly procedures. The City Charter expressly authorizes each newly elected council to adopt its own procedural rules for conducting meetings.
The question is whether those rules should be interpreted in a way that allows the chair to determine which topics are permissible during an otherwise open public comment period.
That is a precedent worth considering carefully.
After all, once government begins excluding one subject from public comment because it appears on an agenda, where is the limiting principle?
Consider the practical implications. Under this interpretation, a council chairman could effectively prevent discussion of almost any subject simply by ensuring it appears somewhere on the agenda. An ordinance need not be debated or voted upon. It could be listed under reports, announcements or another informational item. The chairman could simply say, “This ordinance won’t be discussed tonight. It will be debated at a future meeting.” Yet because the subject appeared on that evening’s agenda, citizens could still be barred from discussing it during general public comment.
That would effectively allow the chair to control not merely the order of the meeting, but the subjects citizens are permitted to discuss during an otherwise open public forum.
Courts often ask attorneys exactly this: Counsel, what’s your limiting principle?
Could another council chairman rule that criticism of the budget is off limits because debate on the budget will happen at some future meeting?
Could another prohibit discussion of a topic merely because he suspects the matter might come before the council later?
The rabbit hole is deep.
Each restriction might be defended as procedural. Yet each would also represent government deciding which viewpoints may — or may not — be heard during a public forum.
The First Amendment does not guarantee that government must agree with speakers.
Nor does it require government to provide unlimited speaking time.
But when government opens a microphone for general public comment, citizens reasonably expect that the government will regulate the clock — not the content.
Perhaps the simplest solution is also the one closest to the original intent.
Clarify the rule.
If the purpose is merely to prevent citizens from repeating testimony after the council has already voted on an item earlier that evening, then the rule should say exactly that.
Rules should reflect their purpose, not create new restrictions their authors never intended.
One final fact makes Thursday’s ruling even more curious.
Mr. Vogeltanz has confirmed that Ordinance 26-27 will not appear on the July 23 agenda in any form — not for introduction, discussion or a vote.
If Mr. Burguières returns on July 23 to discuss that ordinance during general public comment, will he now be allowed to speak?
If the answer is yes, then nothing about the substance of his comments changed.
Only their timing did.
And that is precisely why Thursday’s ruling deserves another look.
-30-
© 2026 Mandeville Daily. All rights reserved. Republishing permitted with attribution and link to the original article.
