The Bainbridge Island City Council will undertake a perilous experiment next month: limiting public comment at the council meetings to just two meetings per month.

While we are supportive of the new council’s attempts to refine its meeting practices and maximize the amount of work that council members can accomplish during their limited time together as a full, seven-member body, we’re not yet certain if this is change we can believe in.

What’s planned is the modification of public comment sessions. Starting in March, the council will allow public comment only during the council’s twice-monthly business meetings.

During the council’s other two meetings each month, their study sessions, council members will now huddle around a table in front of the dais as they talk about pending issues in a more informal manner.

That change will mean that members of the public who attend meetings will now play the part of children in that well-known adage: ’tis better to be seen, and not heard.

We’re skeptical about the proposed arrangement, despite the promise from city officials that they’ll be taking a “wait-and-see” approach to determine if the new setup works.

One concern is that the new approach won’t allow more timely, immediate access to the council members. We can see the potential for someone to have to wait a week or more until they get a chance to bend the council’s ear in a manner that only a public council meeting — and its broadcast over TV cable and the Internet — allows.

Cutting the number of potential comment sessions in half also creates the potential for a logjam of public commenters at the council’s two business meetings each month. And that scenario, of course, will mean more frequent enforcement of the three-minute speaking rule, a current commandment that has few fans outside of the council and city staff.

City officials also note that the new arrangement won’t limit the public’s ability to communicate with the council. There are still opportunities for people to meet individually with council members, or call them on the phone, or send an email.

And there lies another concern we have: the pushing of comment out of the public sphere and into private meetings or the electronic ether. Surely some in city government can recall how those kind of confabs have presented problems in the past.