MANNFORD — The Town of Mannford Trustees decided to adopt two ordinances that relates to the way public meetings are held recently.
Ordinance 2025-14 amended the town’s rules of order and procedure, repealing any ordinances in conflict and updating how public meetings are conducted. According to Mannford City Manager Gerald Haury, the change primarily impacts the way citizens are allowed to address the Board of Trustees during meetings.
“[The code of ordinance] was amended to make it possible for citizens to speak to the Trustees on ‘Scheduled Business' items that are listed on an agenda,” he said. “Before, citizens were not allowed to speak during a board meeting unless there was a ‘public hearing’ and they had signed to speak on the subject of the hearing during that portion of the meeting.”
He emphasized that in order to speak during the trustee meetings citizens will need to sign in to speak on “any or all” of the items that are listed under scheduled business on the agenda.
The passage of Ordinance 2025-15 approved the addition of Section 10-314 to the town’s code of ordinances. The new section addresses the code of conduct for those attending meetings or interacting with city employees noted in the section as “willfully disturbing, interfering with or disrupting public business or employees”.
“Ordinance 10-314 was added to current ordinance to prevent the disruption of any board meeting,” said Haury.
Under the new section “disturb, interfere or disrupt” is defined as “any conduct that is violent, threatening, abusive, obscene, or that jeopardizes the safety of self or others”. It further decrees certain actions including verbal abuse, derogatory remarks, and other conduct that could be considered threatening, intimidating, humiliating, or undermining directed toward a public employee would also fall under the aforementioned definition. Failing to adhere to the ordinance would be considered a crime and allow local enforcement and additional authority to deal with possible offenses.
The ordinances were approved on Dec. 11 of 2025 and were published as legal notices in the Jan. 1, 2026 edition of the Keystone Gusher. The ordinances went into effect following the completion of the legal notice run per city documentation meaning citizens will be able to speak on scheduled business during all future trustee meetings and unable to behave radically toward city employees or during public meetings.