Anyone wishing to speak at the Birmingham Water Works board meeting on Wednesday will be able to do so even if they did not sign up online ahead of time.

Tereshia Huffman, chair of the water works board, said they are turning the spigot off on a new policy to limit how long someone could speak and requiring them to sign up within 24 hours of the meeting’s agenda being published.

The contentious latter requirement doused the utility in hot water after the new policy was unanimously approved at the previous board meeting.

“We had the best of intentions,” Huffman told AL.com on Monday. “But I don’t want the public to think we’re removing any access to us, so we’re pausing on making any changes implementing a new speaker policy.”

Previously, anyone wishing to address the board only had to sign up when they arrived at the meeting and were limited to three minutes.

The new policy limited speaking time to two minutes.

On Monday, Huffman said she will recommend that the board not launch the new speaker policy.

It came at a time when the water works is in the crosshairs of another takeover effort by Republican state lawmakers.

A bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Dan Roberts, R-Mountain Brook, Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, and Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, would call for the current nine-member board to be wiped clean. It would be reconfigured into a regional five-member board with Birmingham, which now appoints six seats, controlling just one.

It would be appointed by the mayor.

The president of the Jefferson County Commission and the Alabama lieutenant governor would each make an appointment, as would the two counties with the largest customer bases behind Birmingham.

“The change in public speakers policy was ill-advised,” said City Council president Darrell O’Quinn. “Obviously, the BWWB was clueless about how much scrutiny they are under.”

The bill would also require board members to have backgrounds in engineering or business. Board terms would be extended to five years from four, and board stipends would be raised to $2,000 from $1,000.

Huffman said she will travel to Montgomery on Tuesday to address a public hearing before members of the Senate’s County and Municipal Government committee at the statehouse.