Mayor Marlin Proposes Ordinance to Restrict Public Comment During Electronic Virtual Meetings

At the October 5^th, 2020 Urbana City Council Committee of the Whole meeting, Mayor Diane Marlin put forward a second iteration of an ordinance that would restrict public comment during meetings.

Marlin’s proposed ordinance came following her new rules for public input during the September 14^th, 2020 Urbana City Council meeting. During that meeting, Marlin disallowed public commentary about elected officials, city staff, members of boards and commissions, and even “negative comments”.

Over the past six months, residents have voiced their criticism regarding police misconduct and actions of City staff. According to Marlin, these criticisms were creating a hostile environment and the time spent on public input made it difficult to complete City business (article here).

The first iteration of Ordinance No. 2020-09-049 was discussed at the Committee of the Whole meeting on September 21^st, 2020. Council members had voted to keep the ordinance in committee for further discussion due to numerous concerns brought up by Council members and residents (article here).

This second iteration of Marlin’s ordinance proposes to add a new section to the Urbana City Code to address what Marlin claims as “unique challenges” associated with meetings that are held remotely in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to Marlin, the tone and tenor of speakers during the public input sessions have created a hostile environment in the City’s Zoom meetings.

“The increasingly hostile commentary at our meetings is profoundly damaging and unwarranted and it piles another layer of undeserved anxiety onto the people who are working hard to move this city forward during COVID-19,” says Marlin.

This version of the ordinance contains the same restrictions to public comment, as in the original ordinance proposed (article here). Several of these changes seek to regulate content of public speech, making the proposed rules a violation of the Open Meetings Act.

The proposed ordinance can be viewed in full here:

Ordinance No. 2020-09-049: An Ordinance Amending Urbana City Code, Chapter 2, Addition of Section 2-5 Electronic Virtual Public Meetings

Among the concerns raised by the public and during the discussion were the subjective nature of tone and tenor, and how the proposed rules would be enforced uniformly across the board.

“As far as the abusive, harassing, and threatening part, when you talk about tone and tenor, we need to be clear cause as it is written to me, it sure just seems arbitrary … and all of us are going to have different ways of engaging with that, there isn’t going to be a clear way for all of us to decide, you know, what one thinks is abusive, the other might not, and you know, it’s just unclear,” says Council member Jared Miller.                                                     

Following the discussion, Council members Maryalice Wu, Shirese Hursey, Bill Brown, and William Colbrook voted to send Ordinance No. 2020-09-049 to council without recommendation. Jared Miller was the only Council member who voted in opposition.

The discussion of proposed Ordinance No. 2020-09-049 during the October 5th, 2020 Urbana City Council meeting can be seen here: