UPDATE: Public inputers CENSORED at Sioux Falls City Council Meeting

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Besides the lack of open government and transparency the authoritarians running this city went full dictator tonight and shut off the audio of two public inputers (fast forward to the Lucky Lady Casino public input. During Sierra’s testimony, Pettigrew Neighborhood Association president, the last minute was shut off and the first minute of the next inputer. This wasn’t just shutting off the public input microphone, but the entire room was silent.

I’m not a videographer, but it was pretty obvious this was probably done intentionally and NOT a technical glitch.

UPDATE: The latest from the city is that someone ‘accidentally’ hit the button. I guess my question is who ‘accidentally’ turned the button back on 🙂

I noticed a few weeks ago that when David Z was giving one of his usual public inputs with his printed out slides that they did not show the slides in the video. Maybe that was a dry run?

This isn’t just an open meetings violation, BUT a clear violation of the 1st Amendment. Unless an inputer is cussing like a sailor or threatening elected officials, they have the right to say whatever they want to. The public doesn’t have to follow the decorum rules, even though they should, those rules are for those on the dais.

When local governments start censoring their citizens at public meetings we have serious issues with who is governing us.

UPDATE: MAYOR TENHAKEN ADMONISHES LEGACY DEVELOPMENT

During the debate over the casino issues last night Paul admonished Legacy Development for NOT selling the troubled property to the city three years ago when he met with them privately to buy the property.

I was told about the meeting three years ago, and from talking to a couple of different sources it seemed believable. I told a couple of different reporters with NO followup. I guess if you want to get the news around here you have to wait 3 years for the mayor to tell us about it.

My concern wasn’t the failed deal, my concern than and now is that the city should get out of the land speculation business and he shouldn’t be cutting real estate deals behind closed doors without the council being at the table.

The irony of this is that the city has plenty of ordinances and regulations on the books to take care of this property, they just have to stop deferring and start acting. Last night’s decision was easy. Apply the laws you currently have on the books to stop the short term problems and create a long term solution to the neighborhood problems.

YOU CAN DO BOTH AT THE SAME TIME!

I think one of the reasons the state isn’t building their one-stop facility DTSF is because they want to move those kind of services away from downtown.

Picture below was taken right after the city council meeting last night.

National Coalition Against Censorship: When Can Speech Be Punished?

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American free speech advocates have consistently defended the right of individuals to engage in offensive speech, including speech which many observers might deem “hate speech.” In the wake of the riot on Capitol Hill, many critics have argued that the violence was sparked by comments made by President Trump and some of his allies, and that therefore they should be prosecuted or otherwise punished. Assuming that the violence was caused by speech, can free expression advocates support punishment for the speaker while still supporting the legal protections for “hate speech” or other offensive speech?

Short answer: Yes.

“Hate speech” laws seek to punish opinion. Punishing opinion is, and should be, forbidden. No person or group that happens to hold power at any given time should be permitted to determine what others are allowed to think. However certain narrow types of speech that go beyond mere expression of opinion can sometimes be unprotected by the First Amendment.

Why Is Hate Speech Protected?

There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment; hence, there is no legal definition of what, precisely, constitutes “hate speech” in the United States. However, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does have a hate speech provision (Article 20), which states that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence shall be prohibited by law.” As a result, many other countries have outlawed “hate speech.” Under those laws, a book by bell hooks has been confiscated in Canada for including what authorities deemed to be anti-male hate speech; Catalan protesters in Spain have been fined for burning photographs of the king of Spain; and a British citizen was convicted for exhibiting a poster after the 9/11 attacks which depicted the Twin Towers in flame and included the words, “Islam out of Britain – Protect the British People.”

As these examples make clear, “hate speech” laws permit the punishment of the mere expression of an opinion deemed offensive. That’s why such laws are unconstitutional in the United States, for the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld that “the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers.”

When Is Offensive Speech NOT Protected by the First Amendment?

Speech which is merely offensive is always protected by the First Amendment. However, some types of speech which are often conflated with “hate speech,” but which go beyond expressions of opinion can, in limited circumstances, be unprotected by the First Amendment.

Let’s talk about incitement to violence and harassment.

Incitement to violence, including incitement to racial violence, is not protected by the First Amendment. This is a very narrow exception; mere advocacy of violence cannot be made criminal “except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Three elements must be met: (1) the speaker must intend to cause violence, (2) he or she must intend that the violence occur immediately, and (3) the violence must be likely to occur immediately.

The distinction between incitement and “hate speech” is illustrated by the Supreme Court’s decision in Wisconsin v. Mitchell.  In that case, several young Black men were discussing the movie Mississippi Burning, which is about the Civil Rights Movement. One of the men said, “Do you all feel hyped up to move on some white people?” and, when a young white boy approached, said, “You all want to fuck somebody up? There goes a white boy; go get him.” The group then assaulted the boy, and the speaker was charged with assault, plus a hate crime enhancement. Was Mr. Mitchell’s speech “hate speech”? It’s arguable. But his speech was much more than the mere expression of opinion; it was a call to immediate violence. 

Harassment is distinct from “hate speech” because it goes beyond mere expression of opinion and targets a particular person for harm. The threshold for speech rising to the level of illegal harassment is generally quite high. Anti-harassment laws often refer to speech directed at a particular person, based on the victim’s race, religion, or other group characteristic, and which has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with, for example, a student’s educational performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment. 

These exceptions to the protections of the First Amendment are very narrow, but they are well established. Civil libertarians and supporters of free expression–including protest, writing and art–can and should support the right to express hateful opinions, but can draw a clear line that no one has a right to incite a riot or to harass another person.   

See this primer at NCAC.org

Large turnout for Angelica Mercado’s reception

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Even though there was a private party in the Everist Gallery (making a bunch of noise and disrupting the gallery talk, imagine that, poor planning on the Pavilion’s part) there was a huge turnout for the reception. Unfortunately I did NOT see the video that I posted to my site the other day being displayed in the exhibit. I’m wondering if this got censored from the exhibit? If so, NOT GOOD. First off, besides the fact there was NOTHING offensive about the video, that is neither here nor there, it is a publicly funded facility, not just local funds but Federal and State grants. Also, the building is owned by the taxpayers of Sioux Falls. Censorship is unacceptable in public facilities.

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Mayor’s Public Input Diatribe last night proves he has NO Clue what the 1st Amendment means

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Shortly after the city council meeting last night I sent the city council and the mayor an email reminding them of the language of the 1st Amendment, I highlighted this part;

‘or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.’

Why did I send them this? Because after public input last night the mayor went on a diatribe about how he has been trying for six years to eliminate public input and has not succeeded (FF: 51:00). He said that it was not ‘productive’ and they shouldn’t have to listen to it.

What astonished me the most is that the mayor of South Dakota’s largest city has no regard for the US Constitution or the 1st Amendment. Pretty scary that a person who rules over a city of 178,000 people thinks freedom of speech at a public meeting should be squashed because ‘he doesn’t like it’.

Call a waaabulance! (but don’t call a regular one, it might not show up.)

In a little over 11 months this nightmare of closed government will hopefully be over for the citizens of Sioux Falls, and we can hopefully go back to ruling as a Democracy and bring a little sunshine back to city government.

Building Collapse Video disappearing act

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Friday afternoon I noticed that a new episode of Inside Town Hall appeared on the City of Sioux Falls You Tube page. It was the normal setup. City councilor Kiley had on the Director of 911, Matt Burns (SFPD) and the chief of the fire department to talk about their working relationships. The one thing I noticed when I started viewing the video was that it was 44 minutes long (most episodes are 30 minutes). While there was nothing revealing in the show itself, right at the 30 minute mark it went into a 14 minute (muted) video of the building collapse rescue efforts. There were several breaks in the video and it looked professionally shot, at one point it seemed also a drone was used (or shot from a fire truck ladder).

I gathered that this video was probably shot by City Link crew. While I commend them for doing this, it also got me thinking about a lot of other angles.

• What did it cost to have a city film crew on site for that long?

• While we won’t film parks board meetings, somehow the city found it necessary to film this event?

• Why would the city not do an investigation when they had this kind of crucial footage, which included them marking the cracks in PAVE’s wall, a crane holding up the wall, and pulling away the damaged car?

• Was the footage turned over to the insurance companies and OSHA?

• Why shoot this video (which included the rescue of the apartment dweller being pulled from the wreckage) when we don’t send a film crew to every fire rescue event?

• Were they planning on using this video as some kind of propaganda?

• And lastly, why was this posted to YouTube and now has disappeared from the site?

After watching the video, I talked openly about watching it to a group of friends at Drinking Liberally Friday night at the Taphouse. Did someone in the group (or near the table) report this back to the city?

It’s funny how transparency works in this town.