WESTBROOK – The length of time allowed for residents to speak during public comments at Westbrook City Council meetings is at the center of a dust-up between a local restaurateur and a city councilor.

The issue could lead to a review of the council’s long-standing three-minute time limit.

The debate started at an April 2 City Council meeting, when James Tranchemontagne, who owns The Frog and Turtle and is a member of the group Westbrook Taxpayers United, attempted to give a speech during the first of two public comment periods on the council’s agenda on his frustration with the city’s tax burden on home and business owners.

Tranchemontagne initially spoke for six minutes, twice the allotted time allowed for residents to speak during the open comment period, before City Council President Brendan Rielly interrupted him to remind him about the time limit (which is announced before each public comment period at council meetings) and asked him to wrap up his comments.

Tranchemontagne informed Rielly that he would need several more minutes to finish his written remarks, and Rielly refused to allow him the extended time. Tranchemontagne then asked if the other members of his group in the audience could cede their time to him to allow him to finish, and Rielly, who later in the meeting called Tranchemontagne’s actions “disrespectful,” told him it wasn’t the council’s practice to allow that.

After what at times threatened to become a heated discussion, Tranchemontagne left the podium and Matt Brunner, another member of Tranchemontagne’s group, finished the speech for him.

Now, Tranchemontagne has made his feelings on the matter public with an ad in this week’s American Journal, criticizing the way Rielly handled the matter. He asks Westbrook residents to write to Mayor Colleen Hilton and the council to demand a public apology from Rielly.

“President Rielly’s comments calling me disrespectful and engaging in (bullying) behavior is far from the truth,” wrote Tranchemontagne in the advertisement. “The comments he made were disrespectful and go against the very basic right that any citizen can address its government.”

Rielly said Tuesday that he would be happy to discuss the matter with Tranchemontagne, but added that he has not heard anything from him.

“I would certainly welcome James to give me a call rather then sending out letters and taking out ads in the paper,” Rielly said. “I think it’s unfortunate that James is upset by this and it’s unfortunate that he chooses to engage in this type of interaction without ever giving me a call.”

In a phone interview on Tuesday, Tranchemontagne acknowledged that he didn’t reach out to Rielly before placing the ad, saying that he felt he wasn’t the one who should be making the effort.

“I feel like they owe me an apology,” he said. “I thought maybe the council would have gotten together afterward and looked at the video (of the meeting) and said, ‘Hey, maybe we were a little bit wrong and we could have handled this a bit differently.’”

Rielly said that the idea of the public comment period is to give residents a forum to talk about things that might not necessarily be discussed at the meeting.

“It has been a long-standing practice of the City Council to have public comment at the beginning and the end of the meeting,” he said. “Public comment is limited to three minutes because the purpose is to allow for brief comment for something that isn’t on the agenda or to make announcements.”

He added that he tries to make sure that everyone who chooses to speak has time to finish, within reason.

“I try not to be abrupt or rude, I will let people finish their train of thought,” Rielly said. “I will often give people a small window beyond their three minutes to finish what they are saying.”

Rielly defined that small window as being between 30 and 90 seconds, adding that Tranchemontagne spoke longer than that before being interrupted.

“I’m not timing people down to the exact second, and I will always err on giving people time to finish what they are saying if it’s in a reasonable period of time to finish,” he said. “James actually spoke for six minutes, 30 seconds.”

Tranchemontagne said Tuesday he felt that he was, in fact, treated rudely at the meeting. “I think we have a very positive message of a way to change the image of Westbrook and I don’t think that should be met with hostility,” he said. “For him to say I was disrespectful and use terms like ‘bullying,’ I thought was way out of line.”

In his ad, Tranchemontagne wrote he should have been given longer to speak because there were members of his group in the audience willing to allow him to use their allotted three minutes. “President Rielly blocked that time-honored tradition – sharing time to give people addressing government ample time to make a point,” he wrote in his ad.

Rielly said time-sharing has never been a part of the council’s public comment period. He said that he told Tranchemontagne that he could hand the speech over to someone else to finish, or he could wait until the second public comment period at the end of the meeting, where he would get another three minutes to speak.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t like either of those suggestions,” Rielly said.

City Councilor Mike Sanphy, who was at the meeting, said he thought Rielly handled the situation well.

“I think he (Tranchemontagne) had something to say and Brendan gave him a couple of extra minutes to say it,” Sanphy said. “We try to be calm and cool with everybody.”

Sanphy also agreed with Rielly’s statement that Tranchemontagne could have waited until the second comment period to continue his thoughts.

“If you can’t say it the first time then you should come back during the second (comment period) to finish,” he said.

Tranchemontagne left the meeting before council reached the second public comment period. He said that he thought it was unfair to force someone to stop in the middle of a speech and force the person to wait for a second comment period later in the meeting to finish.

“It’s insanity that you have to sit down and 20 minutes later, you can get up and speak again,” he said.

In response to this incident, Rielly said he plans to refer the issue of the council’s public comment periods to the Committee of the Whole for further discussion. He said he hoped that Tranchemontagne would take part in the discussion.

“I would welcome James’ involvement and anyone else’s involvement,” he said.

Tranchemontagne said he would welcome the chance to be a part of the discussion and he looked forward to putting the incident behind him and working with the council in the future.

“I don’t have any ill will toward Brendan or the council or the city,” he said.