Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffk
In my opinion it doesn't matter how annoying this guy is or what his past is. This was a time of public comment. It is reasonable to have rules of order and IF he violated them, he could be asked to stop. It is unclear to me that he did violate the rules and even if he did bend them a bit it is not in the interests of a public board to come down on citizens so they should have given him broad leeway. Of course it is up to the board members to make the decision to cut him off and they did. Now they are paying the price for their lack of patience. Was it worth it? They shut him out of his 5 minutes and now the board is going to spend many hours in legal meetings and the town will bear the costs of the legal fight. Was this a winning plan? I'll bet the board members will be cursing their intolerance before too long.
The reason we should tolerate "free speech", even when presented by annoying individuals, is that EVERYONE who speaks in opposition to something strongly supported by someone else is going to be perceived as "annoying". Maybe next year the Alton board will do something that ticks off someone else. That person might rise to speak in opposition and probably become annoying in doing it. There is a time limit and rules to prevent extremely disorderly conduct. Those seem sufficient safeguards to prevent monopoly of the boards time. Let the fools have their few minutes.
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Jeff: you are a bright guy. Thanks for summing this up nicely.