While chairing the November 9th, 2020 City Council meeting, Mayor Marlin readily enforced a recently passed ordinance regarding public input during public meetings. The ordinance prohibits speakers from addressing elected officials and City staff by name, and shortens public input time.
During the public input session of the meeting held via Zoom, Marlin interrupted and muted residents who gave critical comments while naming elected officials and City staff.
One speaker was interrupted and muted soon after she began criticizing Mayor Marlin’s decision to appoint Julie Laut as Council member representing Ward 2. Urbana resident, Tracy Chong was unhappy that Ward 2 was once again without representation as Laut had resigned after less than three months on Council. Marlin interrupted Chong to admonish her for talking about Laut. When Chong replied that she was talking about Marlin’s decisions, Marlin asked UPTV Station Manager Jason Ligget to mute Chong.
Another speaker, Christopher Hansen was muted after he named City staff while addressing conflict of interest issues which have led to the dysfunction of the Urbana Civilian Police Review Board over the years.
Since the violent arrest of Aleyah Lewis in April, residents have voiced their criticism regarding police misconduct and actions of City staff designed to hinder transparency and accountability (article here). Instead of listening to residents and addressing the issues brought up week after week, Marlin brought forth a new set of public input rules at the September 14th, 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”.
Marlin then put forward the ordinance amending Urbana City Code, Chapter 2 that would shorten public input time and allow censorship of public comment during meetings. After two iterations, ordinance was passed (full ordinance here) at the October 12th City Council meeting. Council member Jared Miller was the sole dissenter (article here).
Marlin justified her new rules, saying that the criticisms were creating a hostile environment and the time spent on public input made it difficult to complete City business (article here). According to Marlin, the tone and tenor of recent comments were discouraging other members of the public from participating during the public input session.
However, the interruption, admonishment, and muting of speakers by Mayor Marlin and several Council members had the opposite effect.
“I feel more intimidated by the manner of people being shut off than the speakers’ tone or comments. I considered not speaking because of the way that the Mayor cut off previous speakers, but I will because I think it is important. But it seemed interesting the irony that it was to make people feel comfortable, just want to state that I don’t feel that way,” said Grace Wilken after watching speakers before her get muted.