After months of public back-and-forth between a local critic and government leaders, the county is looking to pass a law that would allow the council chairman to order police officers to remove, and possibly arrest, “disruptive” speakers at public meetings.
The ordinance, proposed at Monday’s executive committee and supported by all but two Beaufort County Council members, would set specific rules for how citizens and elected leaders should behave.
While some leaders say the ordinance will merely keep order at public meetings, others say it’s another attempt to quell the behavior of one government critic.
This article was origionally published by The Island Packet. To read the origional article ckick here.
Over the years, Calvin “Skip” Hoagland, a part-time Hilton Head Island resident, has regularly attended local government meetings and criticized leaders for their perceived lack of transparency and their involvement with the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.
Council Chairman Stu Rodman said Hoagland’s “antics have elevated” recently and he felt the county needed to have rules in place for public comments and decorum during meetings.
“We absolutely do want the public to participate. ... We never want to diminish it,” Rodman said. “On the other hand, we want to make sure that all citizens have an equal opportunity for public comment and that those comments don’t disrupt our business meetings. It’s not required by law, but we do want to do it.”
After County Attorney Tom Keaveny presented the draft ordinance to all 11 council members in attendance at Monday’s executive committee, the group met in closed session for legal opinions before discussing it publicly.
Council member Mike Covert, who’s running for Congress, said he supported the draft ordinance because the county does not have any concrete rules on decorum. He said he asked Keaveny whether the ordinance would impede on anyone’s First Amendment rights before he voted to move it forward to council.
“Anyone should be able to speak to us, but there have to be rules in place, and we have to set those rules in place,” he said.
Council members Chris Hervochon and Gerald Dawson voted against moving the ordinance forward to council.
“This is a slippery slope,” Hervochon said at the meeting. “We’re basically trying to address one person. ... I’m not sure if we can apply this equally.”
Dawson said the county’s effort to address “one situation” could create other problems.
THE LAW
The proposed ordinance is adapted from the Norwalk, California, City Council’s rules of decorum for meetings.
Keaveny said Beaufort county chose to emulate Norwalk’s rules because they “withstood judicial scrutiny.”
In 1989, Norwalk citizens Walter E. White and James C. Griffin unsuccessfully disputed the city’s ordinance in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for its “overbreadth and vagueness.”
When addressing council members during public comment, the draft ordinance states that:
- Each person shall step to the podium provided for the use of the public and shall state his or her name and address; the organization, if any, which he or she represents; and, if during the public comment and public hearing portion of the meeting, the subject he or she wishes to discuss.
- During the public comment and public hearing portion, any subject which is not deemed relevant by the council shall be concluded.
- Each person shall confine his or her remarks to the council agenda item or the approved public comment subject which is being discussed.
- Each person shall limit his or her remarks to three minutes unless further time is granted by council.
- All remarks shall be addressed to council as a whole and not to any single member thereof or of county staff, unless it is in response to a question from such member or from staff.
- No question may be asked of a member or council, county staff or other members of the public without permission of the presiding officer.
Under the proposed ordinance, the presiding officer of a public meeting can order a person who is not following the rules of decorum to leave the meeting.
If that person does not leave the meeting, the presiding officer can “order any law enforcement officer on duty” at the meeting to remove the person — something Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office deputies have refused in the past.
The ordinance states that any person violating the ordinance “shall be guilty of a misdemeanor” and be punished by paying a fine of no more than $1,000, spending no more than 30 days in prison, or both.
WHAT LED TO THIS?
Leaders from Hilton Head, Bluffton and Beaufort County all have faced criticism from Hoagland, and each governmental body has reacted to the critiques in some way or another. In 2015, Hoagland was forcibly removed from a Bluffton meeting by Bluffton police officers.
Those reactions have escalated in recent months.
When Hoagland took the podium at a June Beaufort County Council meeting, he attempted to use his allotted three minutes to address transparency in county government.
After initially ordering Hoagland to sit down, Rodman called for an officer to intervene four times — all of which proved unsuccessful. The deputies did not respond to Rodman’s demands. Sheriff PJ Tanner was also at the meeting.
Tanner said Rodman asked deputies to intervene at a council meeting in May, and they removed Hoagland from the meeting. However, Tanner said he instructed his officers prior to the June meeting not to remove Hoagland unless he was in violation of a South Carolina statute or criminal ordinance.
In October, two weeks after Hoagland scolded him over a lack of transparency, Rodman said in an email that the public comment section “is being abused. It is not required by statute. It is a privilege we extend to the public.”
In that email, Rodman announced that those who want to speak about issues on the county council’s agenda will have to wait until that issue is brought up or until the end of the meeting.
Rodman defended his decision by saying the county is allowing public comments at committee meetings where, he says, the county does more business.
Last week, Hilton Head council member Tom Lennox handed Hoagland a copy of Hoagland’s 2011 felony arrest warrant during a public meeting, appearing to go out of his way to use public records to embarrass a citizen.
After Monday’s conditional approval, Beaufort County Council likely will vote on the draft ordinance after a first reading at the next council meeting on Jan. 27.