The twice-a-month public forums held before Charlotte City Council business meetings will once again be broadcast live on the Government Channel. Council on Monday approved resuming broadcasting the forums in which members of the public can comment on any topic of their choosing. In addition, council approved allowing the public forums to be streamed live on the city’s website, as well as on YouTube and Facebook.
The forums occur on the second and fourth Monday of every month. City leaders stopped broadcasting them after protesters, speaking out over police shootings and immigration issues, disrupted some meetings in 2016 and again last year. The city responded last spring by moving the public forums to a smaller room and stopping the broadcasts.
The forums returned to council chambers last October, but broadcasting them was not resumed. Earlier this month, the council briefly debated a request by recently-elected at-large member Braxton Winston to bring back the broadcasts. Since joining council in December, Winston has twice live-streamed the comments himself from the meeting room.
