Public comment is the part of the meeting where residents speak directly to their elected officials. This article covers how to use live captions and live translation so more people in the room, and at home, can follow it.
Why public comment deserves extra attention
During staff reports and council discussion, the speakers are familiar and the microphones are set. Public comment is different. Speakers change every few minutes, many are nervous, some read from notes, and the topics jump around. It is also the part of the meeting that residents who don't usually participate are most likely to attend for.
SB 707, signed October 3, 2025, asks eligible legislative bodies to make reasonable efforts to reach communities that don't traditionally participate, and to reasonably assist members of the public who want to translate a meeting or receive interpretation, as long as it doesn't disrupt the meeting. SB 707 does not itself require live captions. Captions and live translation are a practical way to support those language-access and participation goals. Whether your body is covered, and what the bill requires of you, is a question for your city attorney or county counsel.
How residents follow comment in their language
With SentraCaptions, captions appear about one second after speech, and the sentence in progress updates live. For each meeting you choose the translation languages, up to 8 per meeting from 75 supported languages. Residents can follow along in two places:
- The chamber screen. A full-screen display for the TV in the chamber or lobby, showing one or more languages side by side, the meeting title, a clock and a QR code.
- Their own phone. Residents scan the QR code and read along in their language at their own text size. There is no app to install and no sign-in.
For public comment, the phone page is often the most useful. A resident waiting to speak can read what earlier speakers said, in their language, without asking anyone for help.
Speakers who comment in another language
Some residents will want to speak in a language other than English. Plan for this before it happens at the podium:
- Test first. Before relying on captions for comment in other languages, run a test with staff or volunteers speaking each of your meeting languages at the podium microphone, and review what appears on the chamber screen and phone page.
- Keep your interpretation plan. If your agency provides interpreters, or a resident brings one, captions can sit alongside that. Captions don't replace a person helping a resident communicate with the body.
- Know the "reasonably assist" piece. SB 707 asks bodies to reasonably assist members of the public who want to translate a meeting or receive interpretation. It does not require the body to provide interpretation itself. Talk with counsel about what reasonable assistance looks like for your meetings.
Practical setup for comment periods
Get the podium microphone right
Captions can only be as good as the audio. The podium microphone does most of the work during public comment. Make sure it is on the feed your encoder sends to SentraCaptions, and remind speakers to stay close to it. A short line on your comment card or in the chair's opening remarks helps.
Remote comment
Under SB 707, eligible bodies must offer a two-way telephonic or two-way audiovisual way for the public to attend and comment remotely. If remote comment is mixed into the audio your encoder streams, those comments are captioned like any other speaker. Test this path specifically, since phone audio can sound different from the chamber.
Names and places
Comments are full of street names, neighborhoods and program names. Add them to your glossary of local names, along with council members and staff, so captions spell them right in every comment period.
Tell people the captions are there
Put the QR code on the chamber screen during comment, mention it on the agenda, and have the chair point it out at the start of public comment. Every screen labels the captions as automatic and says they may contain errors, so residents know what they are reading.
Accommodations and follow-up
Deaf and hard-of-hearing speakers
Automatic captions help many people follow public comment. They are not the right fit for every situation. If a deaf resident requests CART (human real-time captioning) as an accommodation, the agency should consider that request under the ADA's effective communication obligations, which give primary consideration to the person's choice. Your ADA coordinator and counsel can help you handle these requests.
After the meeting
Transcripts are available after the meeting in every language, as TXT or SRT subtitle files. Staff can use them to help prepare the comment summary in the minutes. Transcripts are not the official minutes, and automatic captions may contain errors, so review anything you quote.