The Covington Board of Commissioners discussed amendments to proposed reforms to the city’s regulations on public comments at the caucus meeting Tuesday night.
The commission completed the ordinance’s first reading at the meeting on April 8 and will perform a second reading before casting a vote at the meeting next week.
Although freedom of speech is guaranteed broadly under the U.S. Constitution, Kentucky state law does not grant individual Kentuckians the right to address local bodies in public meetings, even though boards and city councils cannot bar people from attending public meetings. Moreover, municipalities are not required to allow public comments, although many do.
In fact, Covington Mayor Joe Meyer frequently refers to public comments as a “courtesy” extended to the public during meetings, always adding that the commission members usually don’t respond directly to issues brought up during the public comments section. Public comments in Covington are currently only allowed during legislative meetings, which occur every other Tuesday. Established procedures allow speakers to talk for up to three minutes each.
The proposed ordinance states its aim as ensuring “a safe environment for anyone to comment, provide input, or protest any action, inaction or policy of the city, or to simply talk directly to the governing board.”
The proposed code of conduct would include the following:
- Public commenters must wait to be addressed by the meeting’s presiding officer (usually the mayor) before speaking
- Commenters must obey the directions of the presiding officer about when and how long they are allowed to speak
- Everyone must respect everyone in attendance, whether they agree or disagree with speakers’ comments
- Speakers cannot make personal, impertinent, profane or slanderous remarks to any member of the commission, city staff or member of the public in attendance
- Speakers cannot verbally or physically threaten, intimidate or bully members of the commission, city staff or members of the public in attendance
- Speakers cannot use hateful epithets or demeaning language based on a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or disability
- Speakers cannot use profanity or obscenity generally
- Audience members would not be allowed to applaud, cheer, jeer, boo, shout or heckle
- Speakers may not attack or question the motives of others at the meeting
Accompanying municipal orders would allow the presiding officer of the meeting, usually the mayor, to instruct police to escort a speaker from the commission chambers if they become disruptive. The meeting’s officer could disallow the displaying of signs and other paraphernalia. Finally, the meeting’s chair would be able to mandate groups of speakers appoint a spokesperson to speak on their behalf, rather than having multiple people repeat the same viewpoint.
Commission Member Tim Downing had proposed an amendment to the proposed ordinance since the last meeting but did not attend the meeting on Tuesday. In an email to LINK nky, Downing showed the text of his proposed amendment, which adds some caveats to the presiding officer’s ability to appoint spokespersons. Namely, it would add the condition that spokesperson appointment could only occur in the event there is a large number of people who sign up to speak on the same topic. The presiding officer could then prioritize speakers based on the uniqueness of their topics. Under such circumstances groups could appoint a spokesperson if they chose.
Commission Member Shannon Smith, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, pitched her own amendment as well after consulting with legal experts about the ordinance’s wording.
“The suggestion was to replace ‘subject matter jurisdiction’ with the concept of being germane to city business,” Smith said, adding that case law seemed to support that framing of the issue as allowable.
The proposal comes on the heels of a recent attempt by some Covington residents to convince the commission to pass a resolution supporting a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which at times led to tense exchanges between the commissioners and speakers.
One person, Ali Garcia, who represented the Party for Socialism and Liberation, spoke out against the ordinance at the legislative meeting on April 8, directly stating that the ordinance came out of the commission’s disagreement with the ceasefire supporters.
“The ordinance is clearly only being put into play because the commission wants to stifle public comment based off of its recent interactions with speakers on the Palestine issue,” Garcia said. “It appears to be a political tactic to hamper that local movement’s efforts.”
Moreover, Garcia claimed that the ordinance’s language was too ambiguous, posing a set of questions that might arise if it were enacted.
“How can questioning the motives of other people be not allowed?” Garcia asked. “How can the public protest the inaction or policy of the commission if the motives behind some things cannot be questioned? Would demeaning language be defined by the Commission as something personally offensive to all of its members, regardless of an objective view of the language not being demeaning? How will the commission define bullying or intimidation? Is it bullying simply to question the motivations of your elected public officials?”
Garcia did not attend Tuesday’s meeting.
The commissioners did not engage in extended discussion on the topic during the meeting, but the mayor and Commission Member Smith spoke with LINK nky after the meeting about the topic.
When asked if they had any response to the idea that the ordinance was an attempt to stifle speech, Meyer said that wasn’t the point of the ordinance.
“What we have seen happen is diversions from polite, respectful conversation to the strange mood that’s overcome the country,” Meyer said. “And so all we want people to do is be respectful.”
When asked if the new ordinance might impinge upon people’s first amendment rights, in spite of what state law says, Meyer said he took the language of the ordinance from case law upheld in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appeals court responsible for a large chunk of the western United States. The Ninth Circuit is the highest court in that region before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We are prohibiting people from being mean, hateful, spiteful, disgusting, engaging in name calling, engaging in racist behavior,” Meyer said. “We’re not limiting anybody in any way so long as they want to address the issues.”
Smith broadly agreed with the mayor.
“The whole effort is to make sure that we allocate the majority of public comment to things that are germane to city business,” Smith said.
The next meeting of the Covington City Board of Commissioners will take place on Tuesday, April 23 at 6 p.m. at Covington City Hall on Pike Street.