Those of us sitting in the audience at the Board of Commissioners meeting on July 6 were totally confounded watching Commissioner Steve Brown defending the First Amendment and free speech in Fayette County government.
Commissioner Brown was battling Chairman Herb Frady, Commissioner Lee Hearn and Commissioner Robert Horgan who are trying to shove a new ordinance that promotes censorship and gives Chairman Frady almost dictatorial powers down our throats.
I can’t describe the disappointment in the audience as the parts of the new ordinance were read out loud. Many parts of the new ordinance gave Chairman Frady the unprecedented authority to bar commissioners and citizens from speaking at meetings if he didn’t like what they were saying. The chairman would also be allowed to throw them out.
Commissioner Brown described sections of the new ordinance as “arbitrary and capricious” and noted that our U.S. Constitution was created to protect the citizens from those kinds of abuses. Commissioner Horgan insisted on keeping the new ordinance as written.
There is a very good explanation for what is going on with the three holdovers from the previous Board of Commissioners.
First they tried to sneak Commissioner Hearn’s relative on the Board of Elections to oversee their re-election bid next year. Fortunately, they got caught red-handed when Commissioner Brown confronted them at a meeting. The sad part is Commissioner Hearn’s relative is still sitting on the Board of Elections.
The next move from the three holdovers is to try to silence their critics, and they have a bunch of them. Chairman Frady, Commissioner Hearn and Commissioner Horgan know they don’t stand a chance for being re-elected if people keep talking about the crooked West Fayetteville Bypass, their votes in favor of keeping Fayette County in the regional mass transit plans and how they are ruining the county budget.
The number one target of the three holdovers is Commissioner Brown. We’ve already seen the three holdovers do everything in their power to keep Commissioner Brown quiet. This is where the new ordinance comes in.
Some parts of the new ordinance where so obviously wrong that Chairman Frady and Commissioner Hearn had to agree with proposed changes. For example, one section said that “personal attacks, breaches of the rules of decorum and inappropriate remarks,” made by the Chairman shall only be ruled out of order by the Chairman himself. You’ve got to wonder how many times Chairman Frady is going to rule himself out of order.
Commissioner Brown kept asking what the official definition of personal attacks and derogatory or inappropriate remarks was in the new ordinance. He properly pointed out that the open-endedness of such supposed attacks or remarks were anything Chairman Frady determined them to be.
In other words, Chairman Frady would have the power to censor or outright silence anyone if he didn’t like what they had to say. And that assertion isn’t farfetched at all because the chairman has tried such stunts in the past.
Commissioner Brown gave the quote, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” from President Harry Truman, and insisted on letting the people say whatever they had on their minds. Chairman Frady agreed with Commissioner Brown but he didn’t commit to changing the unlimited power to suppress free speech in the new ordinance.
By the same token, Commissioner Horgan insisted on keeping all the restrictions in the ordinance. He is probably determined to keep people from speaking publicly on his illegal drug use.
The three holdovers also wanted to heap more restrictions on the public being able to speak at meetings by making them come in ahead of the meeting and register their names and list what they wanted to talk about in advance. This sounds more like what the communists do.
The new ordinance says, “The purpose of the meetings of the board of commissioners is to conduct the county’s business.” Commissioner Brown wanted the words “county business” changed to “the business of the citizens of Fayette County.” All three of the holdovers zealously fought the change.
You’ve got to wonder why they fight so hard to keep the citizens out of government proceedings. It’s probably because they have things to hide.
How depressing to see three of our county commissioners wanting to behave more like the centralized communist government of North Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong Il than the open and democratic system designed by the Founding Fathers of our great country.
David Barlow
Tyrone, Ga.
