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Court Ruling: Citizens Have No Right To Speak At Public Meetings
March 11, 2010
Governmental bodies in Florida must open their meetings to the public, but ordinary citizens do not have any right to speak.
That was the ruling Wednesday from the First District Court of Appeal in a suit by a group of Pensacola citizens against Pensacola’s Community Maritime Park Associates. The citizens’ group contended that decisions by the Maritime Park board should be nullified because the public did not have adequate opportunity to make comment at meetings.
“The public has no authority to participate in or to interfere with the decision-making process,” the court’s ruling stated. The court upheld that citizens do have the right under the Sunshine Law to attend public meetings, but there is no right to speak in the law.
“The Sunshine Law requires that meetings be open to the public, the law does not give the public the right to speak at the meetings. Appellants have failed to point to any case construing the phrase “open to the public” to grant the public the right to speak…we are not inclined to broadly construe the phrase as granting such a right,” Judges Kent Wetherell, Judges Philip Padovano and Charles Kahn concurred.
Click here to read the court opinion (pdf).
Comments
14 Responses to “Court Ruling: Citizens Have No Right To Speak At Public Meetings”
harley1,
You omit (or didn’t know) a valid point (that the COURT Should have CONSIDERED) :
The ‘board’ ISN’T an ELECTED Body.
In fact it’s a “Public/Private ‘consortium’”, where the County Commission has Only Appointed a MINORITY of the membership?
Since people who sit on that board will PROF$T from the decision(s) of that board wouldn’t it make them conflicted participants? Yes, yes it would. However that doesn’t matter as they (the board as a whole) aren’t acting as a government BODY.
Silencing the PEOPLE when what YOU seek is in opposition to their desires is the first step toward communism. EVERY Municipality in the state needs a CHARTER Amendment this November on the BALLOT allowing EVERY Citizen the RIGHT to SPEAK for 3 Minutes at ANY Public Hearing or Public Meeting, along w/15 minutes for presentation of ‘evidence’ if necessary, or ‘presentations’. So it Takes a Little Longer…what’s the point of a Public HEARING
JJ’s comments are exactly right. Many of the comments here typify the mentality that America is a democracy. America is a representative republic. i.e. representatives are elected to put forth the ideals and agenda of their constituents. Most, but not all governing bodies are elected by the electorate. (That’s you the voter ,in case you didn’t know).
I agree with the opinion of “Jack”. I once had a friend who was seeking self-help thru a support group. Her spouse told her-”… you can go; but you can’t say anything”! In other words, he didn’t want any of the secret, dirty laundry aired in a meeting, even though it was a private meeting where everything was to remain confidential.
Saying all this to say, we, the people, have a constitutional right of freedom of speech…period. For any rules written that violate that, then they are violating these constitutional rights and should be challenged. How can the Florida 1st District Court of Appeals render an opinion which violates the U.S. Constitution?
Voters need to call our legislators and urge them to look at this ruling and do the right thing! They need to hear from “We the people…”!
Still the decistions are politically manipulated: white elephant office buildings, soccar fields, the BCC paying TWICE for property, completely cutting off citizen access to legally required Gov. Permits & Records – and you want to know why Escambia County is becomming a “Third-World-Country”?
The further impact of this has already been imposed and can now be legally enforced; you can ATTEND a Century Town Council or Pensacola City, or County Commission, or Committee of the Whole Meeting; but you do not have the RIGHT TO SPEAK – but pay YOU MUST.
TEA PARTY!
Call, Write, email your state Rep. and Demand a Voice in public hearings under FS 119! This IS an ELECTION YEAR!
It was Judge Collier, sitting at the head of the CMPB and not in a capacity as a judge, who denied the citizens of Pensacola their right to speak about a project that they have to pay for that started this suit. For a long time Collier even sat with his back to the public, and was known to make sarcastic comments regarding the public. There is a video tape of him commenting that he doesn’t care what the public thinks. Who wants to bet that Collier is set to profit from the project that the public will pay for? How many of you want to help Pensacola pay for this projet?
My only problem with this is that I have been to public meetings where this is selective. The rules said no public comment but the officials allowed certain people to comment and then shut it down when others wanted to rebut.
As long as it is applied evenly and fairly, I can see JJ’s point.
And definitely, the ballot box is where our voice is heard the clearest.
Nothing has changed. Your rights are not being TAKEN away. You have more of a VOICE than you used to have before all the “Open Meeting” laws. Basically things will stay the same as they have been. If it’s a meeting where input from the public is necessary, there will be time for you to speak. If it’s a meeting about an issue where there would be absolutely no benefit of public opinion being expressed, then you will not be able to speak. No biggie.
Some meetings are by elected officials to discuss matters of business that don’t necessarily need interruption at every point by some individual or the other who has a whacked out vision of what the outcome should be…. I’m just glad there are “Open Meeting” laws that give us access to these meetings. That’s a lot better than it used to be when you had no clue what was being discussed in these meetings.
Let’s say the city government wants to have an hour long meeting to discuss whether it would be feasible to add hangars to the airport. This is just a meeting to discuss which department will handle the expansion and whether they want to apply for a state grant that would make it possible. Applying for the grant doesn’t commit them to any action, but will open it up to make it possible. They discuss that they will hold a meeting with the public and pilots of the area before they move forward, but they need to know the funds are in place before they can even present it….
Now do you feel the need to be involved and complicate this process at this early juncture by interjecting YOUR opinion? Really? No… REALLY?
I guess it’s one of those cases of “Give an inch, take a mile”. We were given access to ALL meetings, and suddenly that’s not good enough. We now want to be able to be involved in ALL meetings. Hey, if it’s that important to you to be able to pipe up in every single meeting that takes place across the state, get yourself into politics and get elected……
At some point, I don’t guess we’ll need elected officials. We’ll all just get together on every issue, everyone can yell out their opinion at the same time, and then hold a vote by a raising of hands…..
I support their decision.
We the people exercised our constitutional rights when we elected government officials. That is the time when we make our voices heard and exercise freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not equal chaos, and I’m sure our founding fathers have rolled over in their graves many times at the antics displayed by such folks.
Sounds like a violation of our Constitutional Rights. When the time comes for my lawsuit, I will be sure to name each of those Judges independently in it.
Our voice is found in our vote for the officials who make decisions. If we don’t like what they say on our behalf, then we vote them out. The public does not need to have the opportunity to speak at every meeting.
I was taught in Civics class many years ago that in our form of got its’ authority from the CONSENT of the governed. The First District Court of Appeals members must not have been taught American Civics. Then again, they could
be left wingers that have little reguard for our form of government. This seems certainly to be the case in Washington now and it is decending to the local
governments as well.
I wonder what the thousands of servicemen and women who have given their lives for the freedoms given us by the constitution would say if they knew what
is happening to those freedoms today.
Amendment I of our Bill of Rights states…..
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
our freedom of speech is disolving away more and more every day…
Amazing….we the little people who only pay taxes have no voice.