Manteca’s elected leaders are concerned City Council meeting start times — and end times — could prevent people who are commuters from sharing issues with the council.

And that concern with how meeting agendas are formatted will be discussed by the council prior to switching regular scheduled meeting start times an hour earlier from 7 p.m. back to 6 p.m. starting Tuesday, March 21.

The issue came up during council comments during Tuesday’s meeting.

Both council members Dave Breitenbucher and Charlie Halford were concerned the earlier start time would make it difficult for some citizens to bring up issues not on the agenda during public comments at the start of each meeting.

While those unable to attend in person can view meetings and make comments via Zoom, both noted they didn’t want to encourage illegal and unsafe behavior if a commuter due to the 6 p.m. start time felt they had to do so while driving back to Manteca.

And even if they pulled over to do so, Breitenbucher indicated in comments after the meeting that he didn’t like the idea they would need to delay their drive home in order to do so.

The concern about moving to an earlier start time impacting the ability of some to address the council on non-agenda issues was first brought up two weeks ago by Halford. He suggested at the time that perhaps the council might want to look at moving public comments to the end of the meeting with the move to an earlier start time.

But after Councilman Mike Morowit on Tuesday raised another possibility — having public comments near the start as well as near the end of meetings — Halford indicated that it may not make sense to fix something  that the council doesn’t know whether it is broken first.

Morowit, after the meeting, believed the dual comment period for items not on the agenda made sense as it strengthened the commitment council members have made to enhance communications with the public as well as  being more transparent.

Morowit indicated that it didn’t matter that other communities only have one comment period as he didn’t mind if “Manteca was a trail blazer.”

Given what to do with the public comment period was on the agenda, the council wasn’t able to have a full blown discussion.

Afterwards, Councilman Jose Nuno said he liked the idea of having dual comment periods with two conditions.

First, someone who has already spoke at the start of the meeting on a subject not on the agenda would not be allowed to speak at the end of the meeting.

Second, he believed allowing a second public comment period at the meeting’s end should be up to the discretion of the mayor.

Nuno noted, for example, if he were contacted by a citizen that wanted to address the council but was unable to make the 6 p.m. start time, that he would inform the mayor that there was someone that would like to speak at the end of the meeting because they couldn’t do so at the start of the meeting.

Nuno added someone shouldn’t be allowed to abuse the opportunity.

Mayor Gary Singh after the meeting also said he would be open to such an option prohibiting it wasn’t cast in stone allowing the mayor — and the council — to be flexible based on the situation.

It wasn’t clear Tuesday when the discussion on public comments would come back before the council.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com