The following was an email sent to the city council before the April 6th council meeting. The Grandview school board has a similar new rule that restricts public comment to email, and I have a similar email ready to be sent to the board.
To the Grandview Hts. city council:
The city council normally has a “Comments from Visitors” segment at the beginning of each council meeting. Any member of the public used to have the right to speak live before the council at length. This was required in the Open Meeting laws of Ohio.
Due to the restrictions on public meetings during the Corvid-19 pandemic, the city council has restricted public comment to email, which must be received and pre-approved by the council. We don’t know if the council will read these emails – because the first meeting under these rules has yet to occur.
Following the law in SB 197
I believe the city council has made the wrong choice in restrictions to comments via email. I don’t think the restrictions are following the laws, as spelled out in SB 197. The following is a quote from that law.
From SB 197
(C) When members of a public body conduct a hearing by means of teleconference, video conference, or any other similar electronic technology, the public body must establish a means, through the use of electronic equipment that is widely available to the general public, to converse with witnesses, and to receive documentary testimony and physical evidence.
End SB 197.
The important words in that law are “to converse with witnesses”. The word converse implies a back and forth, live comment from the public. An email is not a conversation, it is a one way text.
Residents could have been allowed into video conferences
The city council could have allowed live comments during council meetings. The online video conferences that is used instead of in person meetings allows additional attendees to hold the floor, with permission, and speak live before the council, and hold a live conversation. That option was not chosen by the city council.
There is no additional danger from residents who might try to violate the rules for speakers before the city council during an online conference. If anything, the council has even greater control of speakers, because they can be rejected from the meeting with a simple button press.
The council should change policy and start allowing live conversations online at the next council video meeting.
The emails from residents might be censored before meetings
The council has rules in place that restrict the words that may be used during live comments at council meetings. I’m afraid that the temptation will be to pre-screened emails that are to be entered into the public record, and reject whole emails that only contain certain objectionable words.
I have heard residents speak before the council in the past, and use strong words. The president has a gavel to restrict the use of specific words during live meetings, but the general comments of the speaker are still heard by the council. If the council can pre-screen emails and reject some for strong language, that person has been censored, and loses the right to be heard.
And the word censored is correct, because it will be an action taken by a governmental body. F*** that.
Restrictions on speech feed into general paranoia during the pandemic
One of the more common reactions to the restrictions that have been placed on the public is to accuse the governments of using a national emergency to take away freedoms – and imply that those freedoms will never be returned.
The council could have followed a less restrictive method to allow public comment. The law, as written in SB 197, says that the meetings of public bodies may be held online until December of 2020. This is not a minor, temporary change in council policy, if it will be taking away the right to be heard live before the council for 8 months. This is a major restriction.
Restrictions on “Comments from Visitors” that will now only allow emails are bad policy. Given that the Grandview council can streamline meetings by cutting out comments that might go at length and take up a lot of time, the council will have a big temptation to restrict comments from the public in the future. I have no faith the council will return to live comments, in person, in the future.
The council should re-think policy and start allowing live conversations at the next council meeting.
Watching Grandview Heights 