Parkersburg resident Brian Hayden speaks against a resolution to limit the public forum at Parkersburg City Council meetings to agenda items only during Tuesday’s meeting at the Municipal Building. The measure was approved on a 6-3 vote. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG — Topics that aren’t on the agenda are off limits for future public forums after Parkersburg City Council voted 6-3 to amend its rules Tuesday night.

After a public forum in which most speakers asked members not to approve a resolution limiting public forum comments to items on the agenda, council approved the measure with little discussion outside an amendment to set the time limit for individual speakers at four minutes and the maximum duration of the forum at 40 minutes. Previous rules had limited speakers to three minutes in a 30-minute forum.

The resolution passed with Councilwoman Wendy Tuck and Councilmen Zak Huffman and Chris Rexroad opposed.

“I’ll never be in favor of restricting free speech,” Huffman said after the meeting. “This resolution is an overreaction. I think we can find a middle ground. And I think we’ll keep working toward that.”

Huffman and Tuck were the only council members who did not sponsor the resolution.

Parkersburg resident Kim van Rijn holds up a document and poem created by fellow resident Sonya Ashby in opposition to a Parkersburg City Council resolution limiting topics discussed at the public forum to agenda items only during Tuesday’s council meeting. The measure passed, 6-3. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

Councilwoman Cathy Dailey expressed reservations about having a forum for non-agenda items that council members weren’t required to attend during a Committee of the Whole meeting in January. Asked after Tuesday’s meeting about her vote to limit the forum topics, Dailey said only, “I have a plan.”

The approved resolution also moves the message from the executive to after the public forum.

Council President Mike Reynolds said last week that some speakers were taking advantage of the open public forum “by spreading rumors and lies about the city administration and City Council.”

Speakers at Tuesday’s public forum said limiting what people can address council about is not the way to solve that issue.

“This furthers the gap between us,” Parkersburg resident Cari Talarico said. “The false narratives — they’re not corrected. They’re just moved to a different platform.”

Parkersburg resident Cari Talarico asks members of Parkersburg City Council to vote against a resolution limiting topics discussed in the public forum to agenda items only during Tuesday’s council meeting. The measure passed, 6-3. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

Parkersburg resident Brian Hayden and other speakers said council removed its own opportunity to correct misinformation when it voted to eliminate the council forum portion of the meeting on Jan. 28.

Reynolds at one point corrected Parkersburg resident Mary Goe when she said council was considering eliminating the forum. Goe said instead that council was “restricting” what can be discussed.

“Denying civic involvement sends a message that speaks louder than your words ever could,” she said.

Former council member J.R. Carpenter said an open public forum in the past led to positive changes when issues were raised.

“We jumped on it. We helped our community. Don’t shut that down,” he said.

Carpenter started out reiterating his call for changes by the administration after he said there were issues with the 2023 investigation of his son’s death in an automobile accident.

“You want to fix it, address it. That’s the easiest thing to get people like me to go away,” he said.

Parkersburg resident Brian Boesen had a brief, heated exchange with Reynolds during the forum. Boesen said that after he tried to present council members with a Freedom of Information Act request during the Feb. 25 meeting Reynolds made a disparaging remark about him in a text message with an acquaintance. Reynolds told him not to call people out by name or he would be removed from the meeting.

Both men began talking over each other, and Bosehn pointed at Reynolds and said, “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

“I’ll enjoy that,” Reynolds said.