By Theresa Knapp

 At the March 27 meeting of the Select Board, Interim Town Administrator Jeff Nutting presented a draft policy related to citizen comments at public meetings. This move was in response to a recent court decision regarding a citizen in Southborough who allegedly used “inappropriate language” that violated the Southborough Select Board’s “public comment policy” in 2018.

 In March, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled for the plaintiff in Barron vs. Kolenda. The plaintiff claimed the attempts made by a Southborough select board member to quell her speech and eject her from a public meeting were in violation of her rights.

 Nutting summarized the decision saying, “In this day and age, it's okay for citizens to be totally rude, non-courteous; you can’t threaten a public official but you can pretty much have, according to the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth, public discourse. They give wide latitude to that based on this decision in which a woman berated a select board member going back many years ago, including calling that person ‘somebody who was the former head of the Nazi party in World War II’ on several occasions, and the court ruled in her [plaintiff] favor.”

 Nutting suggested Hopedale consider adopting its own public comment policy, noting there is no legal requirement for public comment.

 “The only people who have a right to be recognized [are those] at a public hearing. There’s no legal obligation to recognize anybody at a meeting, but obviously that’s not a good way to relate to your citizens,” said Nutting.

 Nutting proposed a policy that sets a time limit on citizens' comments to include “up to three minutes” related to an issue on the agenda, and “up to five minutes” on an issue not on the agenda.

 The board’s initial response was to suggest times closer to two minutes.

 The board said it would like to hear from residents regarding the issue, and agreed to revisit the idea at a later time.