Arrest for making a statement at a public forum in Conestoga Twp.: Outrageous
The LNP Editorial Board
THE ISSUE
Public schoolteacher Kim Kann was arrested Tuesday night at a public forum on home rule organized by Conestoga Township supervisors. It was aimed at providing information about two home-rule questions on the May 19 primary ballot. Kann, a Conestoga Township resident, was removed from the meeting by police, and received a summary citation for disorderly conduct after she refused to stop making statements.
What happened to Kim Kann at a township forum was outrageous.
When a speaker refuses to yield in a public forum, the gavel should be dropped. Not the hammer of the law.
Meetings have rules of order, to be sure, but the American right to freedom of speech, while not absolute, still trumps a municipal official’s desire to enforce a rule that seemed aimed at the content of attendees’ speech.
The supervisors said they wanted to limit public comments to questions in order to avoid politics.
Well, that didn’t work.
Kann felt she needed to clarify what she saw as misstatements about home rule made by experts during the meeting before asking her question.
Craig Eshelman, chairman of the Conestoga Township board of supervisors, responded by asking that she be removed.
Eshelman acknowledged that Kann “had a right to speak,” and later said he didn’t realize she’d been arrested.
“We did not say, ‘Arrest her.’ We just said get her out of here,” Eshelman said.
Eshelman’s logic on this point is hard to follow. If officers of the law are asked to remove a citizen from anywhere, one would assume that a criminal charge might result. Without a violation of law, how could the officers’ authority to remove her be justified?
The controversy then centers on the speech-limiting rule itself.
School boards and municipal boards often limit public comments as far as time and sometimes — unwisely, we think — adhere only to the letter of Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act (which mandates public bodies to acccept public comment but does not require officials to respond) by refusing to answer questions posed during public comment.
Deeming anything but a question out of order is another matter.
Tuesday night’s meeting was advertised and organized by township officials.
That made Tuesday night’s rules “a government limitation on speech,” according to Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association.
“Whether that limitation was appropriate or applied correctly is up to a judge” if Kann decides to challenge it, Melewsky said.
Whatever First Amendment standard a judge might apply, the standard of civility does not call for an arrest when a citizen makes a statement during a public forum or meeting.
Mary Catherine Roper, deputy legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, put it well.
“Imposing a criminal charge for the failure to use a question mark is excessive,” she said.
The questions-only rule — and particularly its enforcement Tuesday night — seems like a warped version of the TV game show “Jeopardy!”
That’s not in the form of a question. Slap on the handcuffs.
A citizen should not be arrested, or even removed, from a public forum simply because she violated a rather arbitrary rule that only questions, not statements, could be offered during an “educational” meeting.
It was an educational meeting, all right, though what people learned was probably not what the Conestoga Township supervisors intended.
Public comment can be managed — with time limits and limits on how much response will be given — but it cannot be controlled.
For the sake of goodwill, fair play and to show respect for the First Amendment, the township should drop the disorderly conduct charge against Kann.
-- From:
1 comment:
Public masters keeping the serfs in line.
They don't believe they answer to anyone once you put them in office.
And have no problem using the armed faction of the government to make sure you STAY in line.
Keep cheering.
Post a Comment