Public Comment & City Council Timer
Three minutes at the microphone is less time than it sounds. This timer runs the same green → yellow → red light sequence US city councils use, and the word budget below tells you what actually fits before the chair cuts you off.
A 3 minute public comment is about 390 to 450 words — 390 at a deliberate 130 words per minute, 450 if you speak at a brisk 150. Most councils run a timer light: green while you are on pace, yellow at thirty seconds remaining, red at zero when the microphone mutes. Write to 360 words and hold the last thirty as insurance.
Your script
Stage-direction tags — [pause 3s], [applause], [laugh],
[beat], [slide] — add real seconds and are never counted as spoken words.
Result
Type a word count or paste a script.
3:00 hard cutoff · yellow at 2:30 · red and mic muted at 3:00 · ~390 words at 130 WPM
How long public comment actually is, by council
Three minutes is the American standard, but the enforcement style varies. These are the published rules from councils that document them.
| Council | Limit | Timer convention | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| College Station, TX | 3 min | Yellow at 30s, red at 0:00, mic mutes | 6 min with a translator; 10 min for a group of 5+ |
| Oregon Metro Council | 3 min | Reduced if many speakers sign up | Outline recommended over a full script |
| Washington DC Council | 3 min (5 for organisations) | Chairman is a strict timekeeper | Written testimony encouraged within two weeks |
| Mercer Island, WA | 3 min | Timer visible to speakers and the public | Register with the City Clerk by 4pm same day |
| ALEC model policy | 3 min standard | Consistent placement on every agenda | Length and placement at the chair’s discretion |
What the green, yellow and red lights mean
The light system is not decorative. It is the same signal chain in chamber after chamber, and rehearsing against it is the closest thing to a dress rehearsal you can do at home. Green means you are inside your allotment and on pace. Yellow, almost always at the thirty-second mark, means finish now: restate your ask in one sentence and stop. Red means the chair considers your time expired; in most chambers the microphone is muted mid-sentence if you keep going.
The failure mode is predictable. Speakers deliver a slow setup, reach yellow still in the introduction, and rush the actual request into the final fifteen seconds — the part the board is most likely to act on. The fix is structural: open with the ask in the first fifteen seconds, spend the middle on evidence, and treat the yellow light as a hard landing rather than a warning you can ignore.
The widget above inverts that practice for rehearsal. Paste your draft, watch the bar turn yellow at 2:30, and practice landing cleanly before it turns red. If your draft finishes red, you do not have three minutes of material — you have four, and the cut needs to happen in the evidence section, not the conclusion.
Word budgets by time limit
Written testimony runs longer than spoken comment for the same clock time, because you are not pausing for effect. Use the spoken column for the podium and the written column for the one-pager you leave behind.
| Time limit | 130 WPM spoken | 150 WPM spoken | Typical setting |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 minutes | 260 | 300 | Compressed agendas, large sign-up lists |
| 3 minutes | 390 | 450 | The US city council standard |
| 5 minutes | 650 | 750 | Organisation representatives, special hearings |
Portland’s public testimony guidance puts the written one-pager at about one single spaced page, near 530 words — which is spoken comment plus the citations you would never read aloud.
Writing a three minute comment that gets acted on
A council comment is not a speech; it is a structured request with a witness attached. The structure that works in chambers is short: state who you are and where you live in one sentence, state the ask in one sentence, give the single strongest piece of evidence, then repeat the ask and sit down. Three minutes supports roughly three evidence points. Four dilutes them.
Formal openings are optional and often counterproductive. “Good evening, Chair and members of the board, my name is…” costs eight seconds and signals that you have done this before. Save the rest of your time for the substance. The closing should be one clean sentence: the ask, restated. Boards记 minutes; the sentence they can lift verbatim into the record is the one that survives.
Finally, always submit written testimony even when you speak. Councils publish it in the record, it outlives your three minutes, and it carries the citations, maps and numbers you had to cut from the spoken version. The two artefacts work together: the spoken comment earns attention, the written one survives as evidence.
Questions about public comment timing
Most US councils allow three minutes per speaker. Some cap it at two, and a few allow five for a designated organisation representative. The College Station city council runs the standard pattern: three minutes, with a timer light that turns yellow at thirty seconds remaining and red at zero, at which point the microphone mutes.
About 390 words at a deliberate 130 words per minute, or 450 at a brisk 150. Written testimony should stay near one single-spaced page, which is roughly 500 words. Write to the lower number and leave room for a pause after your opening line.
Green means you are inside your allotted time. Yellow means thirty seconds remain and you should move to your conclusion. Red means time is up; most councils mute the microphone at that point and the chair will end your turn. Practice ending cleanly inside the yellow window.
Almost always yes. Many councils require registration two hours before the meeting starts, in writing or by phone. Some take same-day sign-ups until the meeting is called to order. Check the agenda packet; arriving early without registering is the most common way people lose their slot.
Read from an outline, not a full script. A three minute comment delivered from bullet points sounds like a constituent; the same words read word-for-word sounds like a press release. Use the timer above with your draft, then rehearse from the outline until the landings are natural.
Specialized speech timers
Formats with hard rules and their own pacing math. Each tool opens with that format’s default limits already set.
Graduation & Commencement Speech Timer
Stadium-pace timing with an applause buffer for valedictorian and commencement addresses.
3MT Three Minute Thesis Timer
Strict 180-second hard stop at 125 WPM, with a syllable-density disqualification check.
PechaKucha 20×20 & Ignite Script Timer
20-slide grid with a 20-second word budget per slide and an auto-advancing rehearsal runner.