While a recent change in public speech policy at Mankato City Council meetings objectively can be viewed as an attempt to keep order, the tone of the new policy falls short of the kind of welcoming we’d like to see any time people engage with their democratically elected leaders.
A new provision that people can be removed from a public meeting by police is heavy handed and threatening.
This was part of the policy of how the council would deal with disruptive behavior. Fair enough. Everyone should be respectful. But to warn that you can be hauled away by the police sets a harsh tone and is also unnecessary to put in writing.
As it now stands, police can be called any time the council thinks they are needed, which apparently was the case a recent meeting where people showed up to protest a new city surveillance policy.
The new policy puts a graduated response in place for addressing those who become disruptive. They can be asked to leave, and if they don’t, police can be called. But the presiding officer of the council can take less serious steps like adjourning a meeting and reconvening it partially online.
The council approved these changes without discussion or public comment. That’s disconcerting.
City Manager Susan Arntz had also proposed changes to the city comment policy that would have expanded rules for what topics can be discussed in the 15 minute comment period at the beginning of meetings. Previous policy called for allowing public comment and discussion of items that are not on the agenda. The proposed policy allowed for discussion of any topics even if on the agenda.
That proposal also called for the presiding officer to disallow speech if the topic was “not relevant to city government, its policies, operations or services.”
Council members Michael McLaughlin and Mike Laven disagreed with that idea in favor of simply allowing people to speak their minds about any topic. So those proposed changes were not adopted, leaving the current handbook policy in place.
Laven and McLaughlin set the tone we think best serves the people of Mankato.
Of course, the city has rules for which actions require a public hearing and can use its discretion about hearing from people on topics that don’t require a public hearing.
That seems reasonable, but we hope the council considers hearing from the public and taking public comments as a default, assumed position rather than making restrictions on speaking on public issues the default position.
We also favor an open public comment period as part of any meeting that the council currently allows. While that is not required by Minnesota law, it goes a long way toward setting a tone of openness and a connection between the government and the governed.
The new policy on disruptive behavior seems born of a problem that has so far not been systematic. While it was in response to one meeting where a group came to protest and be heard about the new police surveillance policy, they engaged in a bit of civil disobedience by banging their placards in unison, making it difficult for the council to hear each other.
Some council members then left the council chambers.
We cannot remember the last time such a disruption occurred. And while the political environment has become charged and scary with real danger given the political assassination of former DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, governing bodies must balance the risk of danger with the real need for people to be heard.
People and their ideas are powerful and make government better and more responsive. Let’s not forget a public body’s raison d’etre is to serve the public.
Our own Declaration of Independence calls for the rights of people to “petition their government for redress of grievances,” and a government operates with the “consent of the governed.”
Our history leaves plenty of good examples of the power of public speech from Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” to the anonymous letters of Benjamin Franklin — written under the pseudonym “Silence Dogood” — in James Franklin’s colonial newspaper, the New-England Courant.
Tone is important in setting public policy. We would like to see the council take further actions to set the tone for public participation in town hall-type meetings illustrated so well in Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech” painting. That painting would be worthwhile to hang in council chambers to remind everyone what Democracy is about.
There is nothing more important in a democracy than public speech and participation.
