More than 40 city residents and property owners showed up in the City Council chambers at City Hall Thursday night to speak about whether they were supporting or opposing a proposed downtown Business Improvement District in the city, only to have the meeting adjourned within minutes before they were allowed to speak.

Council President Clement Campana, D-At Large, adjourned the meeting after Paul Macari, an attorney for the Troy Downtown Collaborative, advised the council that questions still needed to be answered about whether residential property owners in the proposed district should be able to vote on its approval even though they would not be taxed.

If the public had been allowed to speak at the meeting, the 30-day period for commercial business owners to have the option to vote against the BID's establishment would have begun.

Macari hoped that the meeting could be rescheduled for the end of January once all of the BID's organizers had received answers to their questions from the state Comptroller.