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New Law Guarantees The Public’s Right To Speak At Meetings
June 29, 2013
Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill Friday guaranteeing members of the public the right to speak at public meetings. While most government meetings in Florida must be open to the public, courts have found that, under current law, there is no guarantee that citizens get to speak at those meetings. The measure signed by Scott exempts emergency meetings from the requirement and allows for time and decorum limits.
The Century Town Council, pictured above, already allows holds a public forum at the end of each regular meeting. NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Comments
4 Responses to “New Law Guarantees The Public’s Right To Speak At Meetings”
I’ve never attended a meeting where they stopped anyone from talking unless they ran out of time.
Since technically the taxpayers pay the salaries of government officials, they should HAVE to listen to our views because we are their employer. Secondly, I believe we fought and won our independence from Great Britian BECAUSE they DID NOT LISTEN to our opinions on taxes. Sound familiar?
amen, that’s my sentiments exactly…. how pathetic is it when we as “the people ” have to pass laws to get the idiots we elected to even listen to us…..its just so indicative of how out of touch the elected officials are but more importantly its indicative of how out of touch the people are with how this whole representative gov’t experiment we have here in America really is to work….from the people , for the people , and by the people ……….people!!!!1
It is pretty sad that we had to pass a STATE law to uphold our Constitutional First Amendment right to freedom of speech. I wonder if certain locally elected officials that were recently in the news for impeding that right at council meetings will take note. Simillarly will the local law enforcement entities that were involved in that particualr incident remove the council member (demanding the private citizen stop talking and remove himself from the chamber), instead of the citizen next time for breaking this new law?
Time will tell.