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At City Council meetings, citizens used to be the “cream.” But now they’ll be at the bottom of the barrel after aldermen agreed to move citizens’ participation from first to last place on the agenda.

Aldermen voted 5-2 to make the change after Ald. Richard Simon complained that during one council meeting, citizens spoke for nearly two hours before aldermen took any action on agenda items.

He said aldermen were elected to “complete serious and important business” and it should be taken care of first rather than keeping business representatives waiting.

Simon conceded that 99 percent of citizen discussions are “important” but set a limit of 5 minutes per citizen, saying too many residents tend to ramble.