Urbana Mayor Sued for Actively Muting Criticism of Elected Officials at Public Meetings

The Urbana City Council and Mayor Diane Wolfe Marlin are facing a lawsuit alleging Open Meeting Act (OMA) violations. The complaint, filed on November 20^th, 2020 with the Champaign County Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Illinois alleges that the defendants restricted public speech in a deliberate attempt to silence criticism.

Courts have long upheld the public’s right to criticize public officials. The suit provides examples of OMA violations by the Mayor and several Council members as they enforced new public input rules.

The lawsuit comes after Mayor Marlin actively muted residents giving public input during City Council meetings held electronically via Zoom due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some residents were interrupted, cut off, and muted for criticizing public officials and employees by name but others were allowed to address public officials and employees by name while complimenting them. In another instance, a resident was cut off and muted for voicing her opinion about a public official’s handling of the civilian police complaint process.

Following the violent arrest of Aleyah Lewis by Urbana Police Officers, residents have been speaking up at City Council and Civilian Police Review Board meetings. Over the past seven months, the public has voiced their criticism regarding police misconduct and actions of City staff designed to hinder transparency and accountability (article here).

In response, Mayor Marlin announced a set of new rules for public input during the September 14^th Urbana City Council meeting. During that meeting, the Mayor prohibited speakers from addressing or criticizing individual public officials and employees. She also warned that anyone voicing “negative comments” will be muted (article here).

Marlin then put forward an 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 12^th City Council meeting. Council member Jared Miller was the sole dissenter (article here).

The complaint, filed by Lovey and Lovey on behalf of John Kraft, Kirk Allen, and Christopher Hansen addresses several provisions in the ordinance that are in violation of the Open Meetings Act as they pertain to content-based regulation of public speech.

“In an affront to the long and proper tradition of robust public discussion and criticism of public officials that is vital to a well-functioning democracy, Defendants believe they can prohibit the public from criticizing public officials and employees on matters of public concern,” the lawsuit states.

As remedy, the plaintiffs are asking that the Court:

1. declare that Defendants violated OMA;
2. enjoin Defendants from restricting people from naming, addressing, or criticizing current or former public officials and employees;
3. enjoin Defendants from having or enforcing any content based restrictions on public comment;
4. award Plaintiffs reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs; and
5. award such other relief the Court considers appropriate.

The complaint can be viewed here.