The Harford County Council's latest action on how it deals with people who want to speak during council sessions is a commendable contrast to one of the body's early actions.
The council has amended its rules so people who want to address the council no longer have to sign up before the council meeting starts to be eligible to speak near the end of it.
From the outside looking in, it may seem like a small change, but as a practical matter, it's the difference between having to show up early in the evening to sign up for a speaking opportunity that may not come until near 11 p.m., or walking in to the meeting later.
Having to sign up early largely precludes the opportunity to speak out on issues that arise during the council session. The only way to speak out on such an issue would be to sign up to speak, just in case something comes up.
For anyone who doesn't take the precaution of signing up to address the council as a contingency, the only recourse had been to wait until the next council session, or to approach individual council members after the meeting.
Of course, the option of approaching individual council members at the meetings was on the chopping block at the beginning of the year when Dick Slutzky took over as council president and moved to ban the practice.
Appropriately, there was a public uproar, and the long-standing practice of citizens being allowed to approach the people elected to serve them was restored.
The public uproar seems to have caused the council to see the light with regard to hearing from the citizenry, at least it would seem so based on this latest move.
The requirement to sign up before the council meeting to speak near its end has been in place for years, and there's really no justification for it in a government that's supposed to be by, of and for the people.
While a measure of order needs to be kept to ensure the council has time to conduct the business before it, the idea of having to sign up in advance of the agenda time allocated for the general public has the effect of putting a chill on any such speech.
This move has the effect of, in Slutzky's words, making the process of addressing the government "a little more user friendly."
It may well result in council meetings running a little bit longer as people take advantage of the opportunity to say their piece. Then again, that's kind of the way it's supposed to be.