The mayor said in last night’s meeting (FF: 10:45);
“We have never turned anyone away at these meetings . . . everyone has had an opportunity to engage the council . . . we have only asked they limit their comments to 5 minutes.â€
After a citizen pointed out someone the city has filed charges against had to spend 6.5 hours in jail and could not attend the council meeting the night of their arrest to make a presentation because of being incarcerated.*
Mike’s above statement is the biggest load of crap I have heard out of his mouth. At the December 18, 2012 Council Meeting citizens who supported a joint election with the school district for snowgates were censored (20 minute time limit imposed on a group of about 40 people by then council chair Erpenbach, and approved by the mayor). If you do the math, that is about 30 seconds a piece.
As I have told Mayor Huether in an email after that meeting;
“You can laud transparency all you want but I’m sorry Mike, just saying something doesn’t make it so. Limiting public testimony to 20 minutes and making up the rule before the meeting started without informing your fellow councilors was blatant CENSORSHIP! â€
His response;
“However, in fairness to Councilor Erpenbach and the process, ALL OF THE COUNCILORS were notified about the managing the debate time or “20 minute conversation†at 1:47pm on Monday. Your comment about “making up the rule before the meeting started without informing your fellow councilors†is not accurate. Whether or not the Councilors made the time to review it or whether or not they wanted to be open and transparent or not to you and to the public, I can’t verify.”
I found out later they were notified in an EMAIL, not a phone call, and several of the councilors did not see the email before the Tuesday meeting.
Mike seems to think some of us have short memories, but his lack of transparency has been following him since day one. He has been trying to stifle citizen advocates all along.
*As for the citizen that was incarcerated for 6.5 hours. They were told a few weeks ago (over the phone) that there was a warrant for their arrest (charges filed by the city) and that they should come to the jail the following week to be processed. The charge only required a recognizance bond (you don’t have to pay any bail). Normally it means you show up, you get processed and fingerprinted and are told what you are being officially charged with. Instead, they were jailed for 6.5 hours for processing.
The bond imposed by the city attorney was 1 cent. The only penny bond on the jail Web site. Enough to hold someone beyond in and out status. Still, 6.5 hours is false imprisonment. Hollywood Huether has lots of tricks. His script is always more fiction than fact.
There’s likelihood this matter will end up a federal civil rights case.
As for the poor person with the warrant, well? How many warrants have you had out for your arrest? Most people I know don’t go to jail? If they are sitting in the County Klink, I probably really don’t give a damn about their opinion on snowgates, applepie or the Main Street Diet. I mean c’mon, the person is in jail for a reason. Just the fact that they are there speaks volumes.
As for the army that wanted to testify on snowgates, well, I’m glad we are getting them but realistically, where do you draw the line? Other souls are there on other issues. If you bring a crowd of 50 people, its not reasonable to think that everyone present should listen to 50×5 minutes of verbal vomit on the same issue. That’s just plain stupid.
50X5 is a filibuster worthy of deployment the next time an indoor sports debacle is forced down citizens throats.
is the implication that mmm or someone in city government held someone captive in order to prevent them from speaking at a council meeting? what was the subject matter of the presentation that was not able to be given? did it have anything to do with something the council voted on in the same meeting?
scott, I wish I could expand, but since this hasn’t gone to court yet, I can’t and won’t answer your questions. Let’s just say the city attorney’s office is really barking up the wrong tree this time, and if it plays out in the courts as we hope it will, it will be a PR disaster for this administration.