| 7/23/2009 12:41:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Maplewood council member suggests cessation of council columns
Derrick Knutson
Review staff
The U.S. Constitution, tyranny, and comparisons of free speech to free beer were just some of the topics brought up during a Maplewood City Council discussion about temporarily suspending council members' columns in the city newsletter.
The discussion, which was part of a July 13-14 council meeting that lasted from 6:30 p.m. Monday to nearly 2 a.m. Tuesday, was an agenda item brought forth by council member John Nephew.
Question of fairness
At the June 22 council meeting, the council received a petition signed by 41 residents that calls for council members not to publish any articles, statements or advertisements in the city's Maplewood Monthly newsletter during the duration of the election season from filing for office in July, through Election Day in November.
Nephew said the Maplewood Monthly controls its own advertising content, but he did agree with the group's assertion that it would be a wise choice to suspend council member-written articles in a newsletter funded by the taxpayers of Maplewood during the election season.
In a memorandum submitted to the council June 29, Nephew wrote, "I am proposing that we suspend the monthly column for all council members, whether or not we are candidates this year."
Nephew is not up for reelection this year, but the mayor's seat, and two council seats currently held by council members Kathy Juenemann and Erik Hjelle are up for grabs. Juenemann has already filed to run, and, as of press time, Longrie and Hjelle had not filed. Hjelle has repeatedly asserted during past council meetings that he is not running for reelection.
Nephew said the memorandum was to serve as matter of "simplicity and fairness" so no incumbent council member has an advantage over another, or over challengers, in terms of the exposure that the city publication provides.
Nephew had intended to have the temporary suspension voted on during the July 13-14 council meeting, but, around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, council member Kathy Juenemann had apparently had enough and vacated her post at the council table. At that point, the vote could have ended in a 2-2 tie, but Rossbach moved to adjourn the meeting, which is a non-debatable motion and must be voted on at the time by the council. Council member Erik Hjelle seconded his motion.
Nephew and council member Will Rossbach promptly voted to adjourn the meeting, while Mayor Diana Longrie voted in favor of keeping the meeting going in order to vote on the Maplewood Monthly memorandum. During the meeting, she asserted that she was not in favor of the suspension of the monthly Council Corner columns, and took about 20 minutes after 1 a.m. to read an entire column she wrote for an upcoming issue of the Maplewood Monthly to have it part of the public record. After her presentation, Rossbach commented on Longrie's desire to vote on the issue after the departure of Juenemann.
"There's no sense, Kathy is gone; your filibuster worked," he said to the mayor.
The vote to adjourn then came around to Hjelle. Already on his feet and ready to leave, he voted in favor of adjourning the meeting.
Dueling petitions
A contingent of four people, led by resident Anne Fosburgh, had spoken at the July meeting to oppose suspending the council columns during election season.
Fosburgh presented the council with a petition of signatures from 54 Maplewood residents who are opposed to the suspension.
At the top of the petition, it states, "As a citizen of Maplewood, we object to Mr. Nephew's resolution suspending Maplewood Monthly council columns from August to November, or at any other time."
Fosburgh had some boisterous objections for Nephew during the council meeting.
"Citizens deserve to receive the information that is happening in Maplewood from our council members in the Monthly and we object," she said. "Quite a few people are very, very upset from this."
Is suspension 'tyranny'?
Maplewood resident Veronica Sletten also was ardently opposed to the temporary cessation of the columns. Sletten's daughter, Elizabeth, is a candidate for Maplewood City Council.
"It's unthinkable we must petition our government to allow free speech, which is guaranteed in our Constitution," she said at the meeting. "(The idea) steps on the toes of the public's right to know. If the purpose of Mr. Nephew's resolution is to stop so-called campaigning, let's define campaigning. I believe campaigning is rumor-based statements."
She then went on to make comparisons between Maplewood and communist regimes.
"To pass this unthinkable resolution is censorship, and tyranny at best and will lead the way for council members who want closed government," she said. "Is this Russia? For those present day, who have served and died for our country's right to have free speech, Mr. Nephew's resolution is a disgrace."
Cold-filtered free speech
During the meeting, Nephew took some time to address Sletten's assertions that the temporary cessation of the columns was infringing upon free speech.
"I'm just wondering about your understanding of the right to free speech," he said to Sletten. "Do you think that's free like free beer, or free as in unhindered? I guess the question is: do you think that free speech means an obligation for you, as a taxpayer, to receive material from all of your elected officials, or is it everyone? Do only elected officials have that right of free speech, or should everyone be given free publicity at taxpayer expense in the city newsletter?"
Sletten promptly responded to Nephew's queries.
"I guess that I feel you always have the newsletter; it's a source of information for tax-paying citizens, and furthermore; it's the right for the taxpayer to receive the information."
She then went on to say that it would be different if council members lied or misconstrued information in the newsletter.
"But they do," Nephew responded. "Erik (Hjelle) does it all the time."
She also asked Nephew to show her examples of lies or misconstrued fact, and he said he could supply her with such examples.
Nephew then went on to tell Sletten that he was actually of two minds on the issue.
"I know, from my own campaign experience, that the single best driver for fundraising and volunteers were columns written in the city newsletter," he said. "I literally had the experience where a city newsletter would come out and I would have people call me up and say, 'I've never met you, I hear you're running for office and I want to come and volunteer for you because I'm so mad that my city newsletter - my tax dollars - are being used to shove this into my mailbox."
He added that he had received unsolicited contributions to his city council campaign via the Internet after people had read columns by other council members in the Maplewood Monthly.
Rossbach also commented on Sletten's remarks.
"I think Veronica's thoughts illustrate why this is a good idea," he said. "In her perception, she thinks I'm the only one who writes letters that are campaigning."
Citing a court case
After Sletten left the podium, resident Robert Martin, who is running for a spot on the council, stepped up in front of the council and read a 2009 Texas Court of Appeals opinion, Rangra v. Brown, regarding free speech, verbatim, to the council.
Once he finished reading the opinion, he had a question for the council.
"Does this council have the wherewithal, and the resource to withstand a constitutional challenge to this resolution, possibly to the United States Supreme court over a period of years?"
Nephew responded to Martin's question by asking one of his own.
"Are you aware that the city of Maplewood regulates signs?" he asked.
Martin said that he was aware of that fact and said that they regulate size, not content.
"Right, precisely the point," Nephew said. "This resolution is content neutral."
City Attorney Alan Kantrud then took some time to address the constitutionality of the proposed suspension.
"This is a taxpayer-driven vehicle, the city newsletter," he said. "I think the restriction is just seeking to not make that taxpayer-driven newsletter available to any contestant as an open mic, because that's essentially what it is. That restriction goes away when the election concludes. This is not restricting incumbents... it's restricting everybody. It's an across-the-board deal, and I think that's what distinguishes it."
Juenemann, who said she wouldn't write a column even if Nephew's memorandum doesn't pass, asked Martin for the basis of the case he was citing.
"In Texas, in Alpine City, a couple of city councilmen would basically have private e-mails that were perceived to be an infraction of the Texas open meeting law, and the district attorney ultimately brought suit against them, and the suit was ultimately dismissed," he said.
Juenemann responded that the issue of taxpayers supporting what could be construed as campaigning has nothing to do with open meeting laws making the processes of government open to citizens. Linking the two, was, in her opinion, "bending this to try and make it look like that."
Coincidentally, open-meeting law and its application to e-mails comprised one of the issues that confronted the council when Longrie and Hjelle first came on board. Former city manager Richard Fursman wrote in a memo to the council he was concerned that Longrie, Hjelle and interim council member David Bartol violated Minnesota law covering open meetings by e-mailing one another and directing staff on their own, without the knowledge of the full council or oversight of the public. Fursman was fired four days later.
Year-round issue
Resident Mark Jenkins said the use of the columns by some council members for campaigning and haranguing other council members is an issue that should be addressed all year round, not just during election time.
"That should really be a platform to communicate with the citizens about advocating for the city outreach to the community," he said.
"The politics really isn't a four-month issue, please try to address it the other eight months out of the year."
"Censorship"?
In an interview following the meeting, Longrie said Nephew's memorandum is an attempt by the majority of the council - him, Rossbach and Juenemann - to "censor" the voices of council minority, composed of her and Hjelle.
"Most (of the majority) don't want it (Hjelle's column) in there," she said.
She added that it would be Hjelle's last column before he leaves office.
Hjelle read from his past Council Corner columns at the meeting, saying that there were many issues city residents would not have been made aware of if he had not brought them to light. He also commented that he would use his own money to get his last column printed, if it came to that.
Longrie added that the Council Corner schedule of writing columns was set up at the beginning of the year, an issue that was voted on and passed by the council.
When asked about the reading of her own article during the council meeting, Longrie said that it wasn't campaigning, because she had not yet filed to run for office. Filing closed July 21, and the column is set to print in August.
The council members were scheduled to continue on July 20 their discussion of the temporary suspension of the Council Corner columns in the city newsletter. Check online at www.lillienews.com for updates.
Derrick Knutson can be reached at dknutson@lillienews.com or at 651-748-7825.
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