Where I live, all of the city councils (several small towns make up my community) let you sign up to address the council if you show up a few minutes before the meeting begins. Most of the councils limit you to about five minutes, so you'll want to have your statements or questions or whatever prepared and rehearsed in advance to make the most of your time.

However, larger cities may have to do things in a more-organized fashion. Definitely give City Hall a call, or visit their Web site, to find out about the procedure for addressing the council. You might have to sign up in advance - like, the day before, or longer, in some cases. That depends on your city and how they've chosen to run things, so asking well before the next regular meeting would be a good idea, I would think.

Also: your city might be required to post the meeting agenda x hours in advance of the meeting's start time. Most agenda items tend to be dull, but if I were you I'd get a copy of the agenda in advance and read it to see if, perhaps, someone else in the community has a similar point to bring up to the council...or if they've already discussed what you have on mind, and are preparing to take a vote on it the day that you show up for the meeting.
Source(s):
I was a newspaper reporter for a while, so I had to learn the procedures for this sort of thing.

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