The whole point was just to not delay the meeting. We want to deal with the motions, as members have a right to bring a motion to the meeting. But rather than take the time of witnesses and the committee at the beginning, just put it at the end. It doesn't have to be 15 minutes; that just seemed to be a reasonable amount of time to allow someone to present a motion.
On February 5th, 2009. See this statement in context.