The October 26th meeting of the Urbana City Council saw a manic Mayor Marlin, re-elevated to her civilian-crushing characteristics of September 14th, when she once again interrupted and muted multiple members of the public for encroaching on her newly-invented speech restrictions.
This time, instead of relying on pure invention for her speech rules, Marlin came with the backing of the Urbana City Council (less free-speech advocate Jared Miller). On October 12th, the Council passed new meeting rules specifically for virtual meetings (article here), and this past Monday was the first opportunity that Marlin had to wield them.
Curiously, the Urbana City Attorney, James Simon, has claimed (article here) that Marlin had every right to invent new rules on her own, without a vote from the Council. It isn’t clear then why Marlin sidelined her new rules for more than 5 weeks until the Council passed them. During that interim period, Marlin made efforts to carefully observe the previously recorded meeting rules. There appears to be a performative contradiction between Simon’s claim and Marlin’s actions.
During public input at the October 26th meeting, Marlin made it absolutely clear that the utterance of any specific persons, including elected officials and city employees, was a speech violation.
One member of the public was not able to give public input because of that limitation. At least three other members of the public were interrupted multiple times for pointing out the misconduct and dishonest tactics of various public employees.
John Kraft was interrupted and scolded for mentioning the names of Assistant City Attorney Curt Borman, and Assistant City Clerk Lizabeth Kay Meharry. Mr. Kraft sought to criticize these two city employees for conspiring to defraud Urbana residents by charging illegal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) fees. Some of those illegal FOIA fees are well-documented (including letters from the Illinois Attorney General citing the violations) on CheckCU.org.
Urbana resident and University of Illinois PhD Tracy Chong was actively muted by Mayor Marlin for mentioning the name of Urbana’s highest paid employee – City Administrator Carol Mitten. Ms. Chong sought to draw attention to the dishonest tactics employed by Carol Mitten in regards to police complaints and oversight.
Rita Conerly was also interrupted by the Mayor for criticizing Carol Mitten and for criticizing Marlin herself. None of the City Council members appeared to take issue with Marlin’s actions.
By the text of the Illinois Open Meetings Act, and by the standards set in the court cases and Public Access Counselor opinions on the matter, Marlin’s actions are squarely wrong. Governments cannot place content-based speech restrictions upon the members of the public who seek to address the government.
Diane Marlin’s conduct has been so flagrant, and so obviously contrary to the intent of the Open Meetings Act, that it appears to have drawn the attention of parties from outside of Champaign County. Until some official action is taken, Urbana City Council meetings remain tense, and fraught with opportunity for abuse by government officials.
-Christopher Hansen, Urbana
The public input portion of the October 26th, 2020 Urbana City Council meeting can be viewed here: