Manteno Village Board Revises Public Participation

By Andrea Arens

In a consent agenda with no discussion and no dissension, the Manteno Village Board unanimously voted to revise the public participation rules for village board meetings.

The revised ordinance provides that each speaker addressing the board be given three minutes, but once the three minutes is over, if the speaker does not stop, their mic will be shut off, and they can be removed from the podium.

It also allows the village board to remove anyone not abiding by the rules, prevents anyone from repeating the same comments, prohibits yielding of minutes to other speakers, and limits public participation to 30 minutes total for each meeting.

Conversation between speakers and audience members also is prohibited, and all of it only applies to audience members, not board members.

Several residents spoke in opposition of the change regarding the change in commentary addressing the board to prohibit those speaking out against the Gotion battery manufacturing deal that was struck last fall.

Resident Robert Forsythe said as he addressed the board, “This is a self-inflicted wound on you. We didn’t do this to you; you did this to yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself to limit us.”

Also approved under the consent agenda was a proposal from HR Green of New Lenox to geographic information system map all privately owned security cameras by residents in the village. Under the proposal for ___________, HR Green will create the map identifying all security cameras installed by residents, even Ring cameras, in order to assist the police department with investigating crimes in the area. Manteno did offer $100 rebates for resident-installed security cameras.

Another unanimously approved consent agenda ordinance prohibits any itinerant merchant, including food trucks, from doing business in the village without first obtaining a license. Itinerant merchant is defined as any person who transports tangible personal property for sale within the village and does not maintain an established location in the village. Transient merchant is similar but includes any occupation of a building, room, vehicle, structure, or vacant lot but does not maintain an established store, office, or distribution warehouse. Any itinerant merchant, transient merchant, or food truck will now be required to complete a thorough application and pay a $50 fee to the village.