Entries in City Ordinances (8)
Free (?) Speech
It is true, at times local government meetings become a forum for citizens to speak out on issues that have no relevance to the meeting being held. No one particular area of the country has a corner on stupidity. This happens everywhere.
So everywhere, local governments deal with how to allow public participation in a meeting and rules that must be followed. Rules control when a citizen is allowed to speak and how long they can speak. Reasonable rules.
Then there is a proposal in Cooper City, FL. The Sun-Sentinel.Com reports...
Dare to wear an Obama or McCain campaign pin to a Cooper City meeting and you might get hit with a $75 fine.
That's if city leaders embrace an ordinance that would outlaw wearing buttons or clothing with a political message at city events held on public property. Political signs and literature, profane language and boisterous behavior also would be banned under the plan the commission is expected to discuss tonight.
Commissioner John Sims said on Monday he is pushing the proposal as a way to restore polite behavior at the city's notoriously raucous public meetings. "You've got to hit people where it hurts, in their pocket," he said, explaining that a $75 fine would discourage rowdiness.
Sims' proposal comes two months after the commission approved a resolution that discourages verbal attacks during public meetings. At the time, the commission said the measure was an attempt to bring civility to City Hall. Sims, the target of a failed recall effort earlier this year, said the current rules don't go far enough.
For some reason I think this proposal will face stiff opposition.
Longtime resident Gladys Wilson railed against Sim's new plan. "I have a First Amendment right to wear a pin, a necklace, a pair of earrings, whatever I want to wear," she said. "It's just ridiculous what's going on."
Mayor Debbie Eisinger doubts such a measure would be legal.
How did this idea ever get this far? Where is the City Attorney?
City Attorney David Wolpin said former City Clerk Susan Bernard drafted the proposed ordinance at Sims' request without consulting him. Wolpin declined to discuss the proposal, saying he planned to share his legal opinion with commissioners tonight.
Let this be a lesson to all local elected officials. If you want a new ordinance drafted, do not, I repeat do not, have a former City Clerk draft it for you.
If you do, some blogger will be making fun of you very quickly.
Al Arnold
2 Comments
Snellville...revisited
A couple of months ago I wrote about the misadventures in Snellville, GA.
At that time a portion of the Atlanta Journal-Consititution article reported...
People are tired of games. They are weary of elected officials who poke at each other publicly or who are snide, sarcastic, unprofessional or hateful.
How are things going now? The latest news report started out...
A liar, a bully, a lush, a hypocrite, a puppet and an adulterer. This is how the Snellville mayor and some City Council members describe one another.
So it's not surprising that politics here have been contentious for years with no sign of a truce in sight.
No truce in sight? Doesn't sound good, does it?
The estimated 19,000 residents are battling urban sprawl and facing a possible tax hike.
Yet those issues felt far from the front during a recent council meeting where insults were hurled around the room like arrows.
At one point, Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer whipped his head around to face Mayor Pro Tem Warren Auld, belting out:
"Are you calling me a liar?"
And this...
City Councilwoman Kelly Kautz, a local lawyer, said... "I've lost a lot of respect for people on this council tonight," she said. "At this point and time, I'm ashamed to be sitting up here. We're worse than Lithonia."
I'm guessing that would be Lithonia, GA. (I gotta get down to Georgia sometime and take in a Council meeting or two.)
How is Mayor Oberholtzer holding up under these circumstances?
"They hate me," ... the mayor said he has never truly fit in because he's not from Snellville or the South —and he's a Catholic on Southern Baptist turf.
Council member Robert Jenkins disagrees.
"I have nothing against Jerry personally, but his behavior as an elected official and a colleague on the council is reprehensible. If he wants to do something and anybody opposes him, he attacks them personally and politically."
Mayor Pro Tem Warren Auld simply stated...
"I'm weary of the contentiousness ...The city of Snellville deserves to have a City Council that acts professionally."
That shouldn't be too much to ask ... should it?
"Nipplegate"
Wrestlemania is coming and...
"Nipplegate" is what they are calling it in Orlando.
Anybody who's ever seen a professional wrestler knows their bodies don't look like most folks'. But the wrestlers featured on a massive sign in downtown Orlando look even more unusual.
They're missing nipples.
I can hear you screaming at me, "What does this have to do with Local Politics?" I'm coming to it.
Mayor Buddy Dyer claimed to have the, um, skinny. "Apparently there's an ordinance that prohibits them from being displayed," he said.
Come on Mayor...A nipple ordinance on signs? Who came up with that?
There is, in fact, no city law that bans the display of male chests...
What happened, said a similarly uncomfortable city spokesman, Carson Chandler, was that city staffers asked the WWE and folks to create banners that weren't too provocative. And somewhere along the way, the nipples were airbrushed out before the giant sign reached Orlando.
The questions that need answers are:
1) Who were the "city stafffers" that spoke with the WWE.
2) Were those "city staffers" under orders from superiors to request non-provocative signs?
3) What were the thoughts of the "airbrush" artist as he/she went about their work?
4) What did Mayor Dyer really know...and when did he know it?
I'm on it readers...I'm on it!
Petty... Petty Politics
Local politics can get very petty at times. (Note: Petty, not Pretty.) Over the past couple of weeks it became very petty in Rensselaer, NY.
Blogger Bob Gardinier breaks the news to us.
The Rensselaer Common Council president got the blessing of the council last night to officiate at a wedding for his friends after his request got shot down two weeks ago.
1st Ward Alderwoman Scarlett Palermo is getting married May 17 in Riverfront Park to Fred Blowers and they wanted their longtime friend Common Council President Chuck Hall to officiate.
The mayor can do it, the city clerk, city judges and there is a section in the city charter that allows a council member a one-day pass to tie the knot with council approval.
The council, known for its sometimes pugilistic politics, left Palermo blue two weeks ago when they voted against giving Hall the one day dispensation.
No one was saying why at the time. It is however widely known that Palermo and Hall have riled Mayor Dan Dwyer and other elected officials recently over a cell tower being built near city hall and a proposal to settle a nine-year water rents arrears to the city of Troy.
Hall and Palermo decided to put the item on the council agenda again Wednesday and it passed unanimously.
Spring was in the air this time.
Wisely, cooler heads finally prevailed.
Leadership Crisis
There is a problem in Snellville... Snellville, Georgia.
Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer announced Monday that he would temporarily run Snellville in the absence of a city manager.
The contract of Snellville's interim city manager, Jim Brooks, who was hired last year, expires Wednesday.
Oberholtzer made the announcement at a contentious City Council meeting Monday that he intended to wield his power as chief executive officer. Some members of the City Council took exception.
I would imagine this would cause some on the City Council, to take exception. It also caused some citizens to take exception also. In a follow-up article ...
Dennis Lawton, who has lived in Snellville for 15 years and served on the Snellville Planning Commission, said he has long been embarrassed by the general demeanor of the city’s elected leadership...Lawton’s main concern Monday was how the city had allowed the issue of finding a new city manager to become a state of “emergency,” which permitted the mayor to authorize himself as a temporary replacement. The city has known for months that its interim city manager would leave Feb.13.
Suzanne Krieger shared that concern, telling the council and mayor “this is not an emergency; this is politics.” She encouraged a look at other options, saying “a dictatorship should not be allowed.”
Things have not been good in Snellville for some time. The report continues...
People are tired of games. They are weary of elected officials who poke at each other publicly or who are snide, sarcastic, unprofessional or hateful.
Ouch. Or how about...
Patricia Port, a member of the Snellville Planning Commission, expressed similar sentiments.
“Each one of you up there needs to grow up,” Port told them, reminding them that as a voter she expects better city leadership.
The Mayor looks like such a nice guy...Wears two American flags on his lapel and everything.
But...Snellville has a Leadership crisis.
It also sounds like they have a Peon crisis for allowing all this to happen for so long.