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Thread: Speaking at public meetings

  1. #1
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    Speaking at public meetings

    An open letter to the Town Supervisor

    January 24, 2023
    Town of Lancaster Supervisor
    RE: Speaking at public comment sessions


    Honorable Supervisor Ruffino

    At the January 17th town board meeting closing public comment session you not only attempted to prevent a resident from addressing the board, but declared you were shutting down the public comment session in its entirety. After conferring with the Town Attorney and hearing from a second individual who intended to address the board and who questioned why his free speech and his right to address the board was arbitrarily being suppressed by his government.

    You then allowed the two individuals to address the board and declared you were going to look into the matter on what your rights / options were to silence ‘anyone attacking / pounding on you.’ Hopefully you have looked into the matter and can give clarification on your opinion and options, and set boundaries if so determined.

    I take free speech very seriously and would consider any attempt to shut down a scheduled public comment session an attack on free speech – especially shutting down a public comment session where the public was already asked ‘if they wish to speak on any town subject.’

    In the 20+ years I religiously attended Lancaster town board meetings, as well as meetings in other Western New York municipalities, I have never heard a like rebuke and threat to shut down a public comment session.

    If a citizen feels strongly about an issue in the community he or she attends a city council meeting to voice those concerns. If the citizen is prohibited from addressing a controversial topic, that citizen’s First Amendment rights have been violated.

    Speaking at public meetings

    Sometimes government officials need to silence disruptive citizens or to prohibit endless repetition. However, other times the officials may be squelching citizen speech because they want to suppress the message.

    Many government meetings are open to the public and reserve a “public comment” time for citizen commentary on issues. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals explained in its 1990 decision White v. City of Norwalk: “Citizens have an enormous First Amendment interest in directing speech about public issues to those who govern their city.” These meetings, particularly the “public comment” period, are at the very least a limited public forum during which free-speech rights receive heightened protection.

    It bears stressing that First Amendment rights are not absolute during public-comment periods of open meetings. Speakers can be silenced if they are disruptive.

    “A speaker may disrupt a Council meeting by speaking too long, by being unduly repetitious, or by extending discussion of irrelevancies,” the 9th Circuit wrote in White v. City of Norwalk. “The meeting is disrupted because the Council is prevented from accomplishing its business in a reasonably efficient manner. Indeed, such conduct may interfere with the rights of other speakers.”

    Unfortunately, many situations arise in which citizens are silenced because of the content of their speech or because they have disagreed previously with a government official. This raises the specter of censorship. Government officials may not silence speech because it criticizes them. They may not open a “public comment” period up to other topics and then carefully pick and choose which topics they want to hear.

    They may not even silence someone because they consider him a gadfly or a troublemaker.

    A content-neutral policy against personal attacks is not facially unconstitutional insofar as it is adopted and employed to serve the legitimate public interest in a limited forum of decorum and order. The appeals court reasoned that the policy was content-neutral, as people could still present their viewpoints and messages disagreeing with certain policies without resorting to personal attacks.

    When a government decides to offer a “public comment” period at an open meeting, it provides that citizens may exercise their First Amendment rights. Government officials can limit comments to the relevant subject matter, control disruptive or overly repetitive speakers and impose reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on speech. However, when government officials create a public-comment forum, they have created a limited public forum in which greater free-speech protections apply. The government may not silence speakers on the basis of their viewpoint or the content of their speech. The government must treat similarly situated speakers similarly. In essence, the government must live up to the values embodied in the First Amendment.


    Those are the precepts I am familiar with Supervisor Ruffino. What have you learned?

    Lee Chowaniec
    Lancaster, NY

    CC:
    Lancaster Town Board
    Attorney Thomas Fowler

  2. #2
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    Agreed with the sentiments above. Any good leader knows how to accept criticism and why it's important. The Supervisor displayed an utter disregard for the rights of a citizen to address their government freely, to be heard, and to not be censored. I don't claim to know the backstory or what the apparent history between these two guys is or what transpired in the past, but the Supervisor handled this very poorly. Frankly, I find myself very disappointed with the performance and priorities of not only the Supervisor but the entire the Town Board. They are just not listening to the wants and needs of the citizens and taxpayers, and this is just one such instance. I think a cleaning of house is in order for next election.

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