Three familiar critics of Fredonia village government all needled the Board of Trustees and Mayor Michael Ferguson this week, for their recent decision to shut off the broadcast of public comments about items not on meeting agendas.

Andrew Ludwig, Samuel Drayo and Mark Twichell spoke during the televised portion of a trustees meeting, where public comments are now supposed to be limited to agenda items only. A second public comment session was added to the end of the trustees’ meetings, where people can speak about anything — but the Fredonia Access broadcast is off the air.

“Having the opportunity to express concerns to the village board on matters not in the meeting agenda is an excellent best practice that will be good for the citizens of Fredonia, but I can’t for the life of me understand the board’s decision not to broadcast the second session of public comments,” Ludwig said.

Ludwig demanded to question each trustee individually about their position on the matter. Trustee Jon Espersen and Trustee Paul Wandel didn’t want to respond. Trustee Ben Brauchler said someone other than Fredonia Access was welcome to broadcast the second comment session.

Trustees Christine Cruz Keefe and Leeann Lazarony expressed misgivings about not televising the comments.

Ludwig and Ferguson then got into a brief dispute, and Ludwig said, “You all love to interrupt me when I’m speaking — I’m giving you the perfect opportunity to have my speaking time, so have at it!”

He said, “I’m not done — how much time do I have left, we’re going to sit here for a minute, you got anything to say? How is it good for the citizens of Fredonia to not be able to see the questions brought up in the second public comment session?”

Everyone in the meeting room sat silently as Ludwig stood at the podium for his final minute. “I should have asked for more time, I don’t think I’m going to get any,” he said as a buzzer went off to close his three minutes off allotted time.

Drayo said some of his comments were not on the agenda, so might have to wait. However, “what is on the agenda is your silencing the members of the public from being heard by other members of the public. That’s not right, there’s no harm in doing that. People need to know what the objections are, and what the suggestions and the recommendations are from the public. There’s no harm in that and a lot of good that can come from it.”

Twichell said the trustees’ adoption of the public commenting change during a workshop stopped the public from discussing it, because it wasn’t on an official meeting agenda. He stated that the New York Committee on Open Government issued six advisory opinions from 2003-11 maintaining that it is illegal to restrict public comments to agenda-only items.

Twichell asked the board to rescind its agenda item limit for the first, televised comment session. To do otherwise would be a violation of the First Amendment, he suggested.