by Dianna M. Náñez - Sept. 18, 2012 11:34 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
Even as Tempe tries to become more transparent, the council has decided not to broadcast the public-comments portion of its council meetings, prompting free-speech concerns and criticism that residents may never hear some of their neighbors' concerns.
Last month,Tempe's new mayor, Mark Mitchell, and new council reaffirmed the city's practice of not posting the public-comments portion of council meetings on the city website, not televising it during the live city cable broadcasts and not rebroadcasting it.
Tempe and Phoenix are among the few major Valley cities that don't air the public-comments sessions that often come at the end of such meetings or after regular council meetings.
Phoenix officials said they are making other moves to become transparent, including broadcasting council workshops and public comment there. Tempe officials, saying potential legal problems prompted the policy, pointed out that residents still have access to public comments if they attend the meeting in person.
Chandler, Scottsdale, Glendale, Gilbert and Mesa are among the cities that broadcast the public-comments portion of council meetings on their cable channels.
Residents are still allowed to speak on certain items on council agendas in Valley municipalities, including Phoenix and Tempe. However, the broadcast practices in those two cities apply to the public-comments portion during Tempe's formal meetings and after Phoenix's formal meetings. Those comments range from the rancorous to the benign and have become commonplace at local government meetings across the country.
A national coalition fighting censorship said not broadcasting the public-comments portion prevents residents from speaking to a wider audience and limits access to speech and information aired at the meeting about their government.
Tempe tapes the public-comment portion of its meeting but does not broadcast it. Phoenix ends the formal council meeting, then turns off the camera during the public-comments portion that follows.
Phoenix officials say they are making moves to become more transparent to those who cannot attend public meetings. The city has broadcast council policy sessions for more than 20 years, and after new Mayor Greg Stanton called for greater transparency, in April Phoenix also started broadcasting regular council meetings. They make a "call to the public" at six subcommittee meetings to invite participants to comment on any topic, Phoenix spokeswoman Toni Maccarone said.
Tempe City Manager Charlie Meyer said he made the decision not to air the public-comments portion with input from the council about 11/2 years ago. The move came after problems with a Tempe resident, Eleanor Holguin, who Meyer said was making "potentially slanderous" remarks about city employees.
The goal, he said, was to protect city workers from potential defamation and to protect the city from potential legal harm for having provided a forum to amplify potentially slanderous criticism during the broadcast and rebroadcast of public comment, Meyer said.
Originally, Meyer and City Attorney Andrew Ching would review Holguin's comments during initial live broadcasts and delete speech they viewed problematic from rebroadcasts. But Meyer said he worried about the potential First Amendment implications of picking and choosing certain comments, so he decided to stop airing all public comment.
Holguin said Tuesday that she has not spoken at a meeting in months because she hoped the new mayor and council would follow through on their promise of greater transparency and change the policy.
She is still adamant that she has the right to complain about the city's police chief, city workers, the council and city manager.
Councilman Kolby Granville, who was elected in May to his first term, recently fought the practice, asking the council last month during its annual retreat to reconsider and return to its earlier tradition of broadcasting all public comment.
The city should not be in the business of censorship, he said. Granville argued that there are residents who cannot make the meetings and they deserve to hear issues that their neighbors care about enough to bring to the council.
Some residents use the forum to discuss problems they are experiencing with city government or municipal services.
"That broadcast allows people with common problems to find community," he said.
On Tuesday, Granville said he would still like the council to revisit the issue. "I think anytime you've provided a forum or opportunity for residents to voice legitimate concerns within the community that's only to the further and betterment of free speech," he said.
However, Granville said, he respects the council and manager's view and would not formally raise the concern again unless there is public outcry. Mitchell said if he heard from constituents he would also reconsider the issue.
Svetlana Mintcheva of the National Coalition Against Censorship said Tempe should reconsider because it has backed a policy created to address one person, but an entire city is being punished.
The policy also may impinge on the First Amendment rights of the audience watching at home.
"There is the opportunity for the public forum to be transmitted to the whole community," Mintcheva said. "And in this case it is important to do so because access to information and speech is no less important than the right to the individual to speak."
Censorship issues are a concern as well, she said.
"This type of speech, political speech on issues of public interest, it carries the highest level of First Amendment protection," she said. "They're pre-emptively censoring debate on issues of public interest ... before there has been any allegation that there is actual slander."
Granville said Tempe residents know how to decipher credible public comments.
"As soon as you start picking and choosing what's the kind of speech you want to hear and what's the kind of speech you don't want to hear -- I think that's a bad thing," Granville said.
19 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/09/18/20120918tempe-public-remarks.html
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