You get the feeling that Auburn City Councilors know they should just leave their public comment policy alone, but they can't quite give up on their quest to silence certain residents.

Last week the council tabled a resolution that would require speakers to sign a form saying they will not speak about pending litigation or make personal attacks during the “public to be heard” portion of council voting meetings. This was the third time they tabled possible changes, which have evolved to the most recent proposal from an initial measure that would have barred speakers from addressing the same subject within a 90-day period.

The opposition to any such plan has been strong, and it appears councilors are at least listening. David Dempsey has actually said he opposes the change outright, and we applaud him for that.

We hope his colleagues can finally see the wisdom in rejecting any new changes, and move on to other issues.

There's a big problem in the policy change that's still on the table. It's vague language could be a major problem. Could a speaker be prohibited from criticizing a specific city councilor for a vote he took because it's a personal attack?

If that's the case, Auburn would be taking a giant step backward.

Yes, it can be incredibly annoying to everyone else when a person gets up week after week and says basically the same thing. But as long as speakers stay within their three-minute window, and as long as they are not slandering (in the legal sense) other people, the benefit of overall access to government and the free flow of information far outweighs this inconvenience.

The key, as we've said before, is for the council to consistently follow its established procedures. Led by the mayor, who has the responsibility to keep meetings in order, councilors should simply let the speakers have their time, take notes about what is said and then move on to other meeting business.