§ 158-431. Place and nature of hearings.

(a)

All official hearings conducted in any proceeding governed by this article shall be open to the public. All hearings shall be held in the city, in the council chamber, city hall, unless the council shall designate another place of hearing. A public utility regulatory hearing or franchise regulation hearing under this article may be conducted within a regular or special meeting of the council, or may, under circumstances where the hearing is limited to inquiries into fact by a referee, special master, administrative law judge, or designated agent or hearing officer of the council, be held before such officer outside of a council meeting and outside the presence of the council. If a hearing is held before the council at a meeting thereof, the president of the council shall declare for the record the time at which such hearing commences and is concluded and the times at which it shall digress from or continue utility or franchise council business. No such digression from or continuance of utility or franchise business shall occur except upon approval of a motion so to digress or to continue. The clerk shall provide for recordation, by a certified court reporter, of any hearing under this article.

(b)

Whenever it is deemed desirable by the council that members of the public at large who are not parties of record should be heard on any matter under this article, or wherever such hearing is required by the city charter or any applicable law, the council president or other presiding officer shall declare at the beginning and end of the at-large hearing the nature of such hearing, and shall declare that no part of statements made or evidence adduced at such at-large public hearing shall, in legal terms, form (and such matter shall not form) the basis of any council decision in a contested proceeding. No member of the public at large who speaks as such, and not as a party of record, shall be compelled to submit to cross-examination under an instanter subpoena.

(Code 1956, § 52-123)