PUBLIC HEARINGS
Holding a Public Hearing over VIT is a great use of the system. It allows citizens from around the state to take part in the democratic process without having to travel. In most cases, turn out at VIT held Public Hearings are often higher than those held in person in one central location.
Public Hearing Format
Each VIT studio will make a sign up sheet available for participants to indicate whether they wish to testify. The number of “testifiers” will be given to your Technician prior to the beginning of the hearing. This will help you determine how much time to allot for testimony. In general, we highly recommend two minutes per person. You will need to assign a person from your staff to act as a timekeeper. The VIT Public Hearing procedure is to call on each site in alphabetical order and allow two people to testify per site. Once you have cycled through all the sites, begin the process again. VIT staff will keep you updated on the number of people wishing to testify as they may change once the hearing begins.
At the beginning of the Hearing please announce:
(NOTE: If you have given permission for the hearing to be taped for Public Access entities please announce the following: "For your information this hearing is being taped for use on many Public Access stations throughout the state.")
Then continue with:
- We will rotate through the state hearing from two people per site for a time period of two minutes per person.
- Please be prepared to complete your testimony when you hear the timekeeper say “time”
At this point you can call on the first site in the alphabetical listing. After testimony from that site call on the next site and thus proceed through the whole list of sites. Repeat the process as often as necessary to hear all of the testimony.
NOTE: If it becomes apparent during the hearing that you will not have enough time to hear from everyone it is often useful to state the following:
“If prior testimony
supports your position in the same topic, please consider
condensing your comments or deferring to others so that a broad cross section
of subjects can be addressed this evening. Thank You.”
