Just six hours after Mayor Marlin interrupted me and others multiple times and muted me based on her newly invented public speaking rules at the September 14th Urbana City Council meeting, I submitted a request for review to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.
Deputy Public Assistant Counselor Leah Bartelt wrote a letter the next week, indicating her intent to investigate and requiring Marlin to submit information and explanations within 7 business days. Of course, City Attorney James Simon stepped in to defend Mayor Marlin.
Describing Mr. Simon’s response letter to the IAG as “bungling” might actually be too polite. His arguments rely significantly on attacking me personally (apparently, I single-handedly broke Urbana) and are so devoid of meaningful legal tact that it is hard to know where to start.
The backstory is fairly simple: Mayor Marlin independently invented new public speaking rules, both in terms of time limits as well as content-based speech restrictions for public meetings just before the September 14th City Council meeting. Marlin emailed her plan to the City Council members before the meeting (article here), announced her plan at the meeting, then proceeded to repeatedly interrupt and mute Urbana residents for saying things that Marlin disagreed with (article here).
Curiously, after I complained to the IAG, Marlin completely abandoned her new public input rules at the following meetings and instead brought forth new legislation to the Council to have the rules modified. This action would seem to impute guilt pretty readily (why should Marlin bother proposing ordinance if she already had the power to independently invent new speech restrictions?), but Mr. Simon still argues that Marlin did not violate the Open Meetings Act.
To support his case, Simon invokes a number of previous court cases and Public Access Counselor (PAC) opinions. The problem is, Simon arranged his citations so idiotically that they are either meaningless or actually prove the opposite of what he intends. You would have to read the complaint letters and the cited PAC opinions (all provided at the end of this article) to truly appreciate just how backwards Mr. Simon’s arguments are, but I will try to briefly summarize.
In his response letter, Mr. Simon cited 2016 PAC 45349, yet this PAC opinion in no way supports anything that Marlin did nor any argument put forth by Simon. Simon has invoked this PAC opinion because he wanted to pluck out two partial sentences:
“public bodies may generally promulgate reasonable’ ‘ time, place and manner’ regulations that are necessary to further a significant governmental interest… while ensuring that the public body can maintain order and decorum at public meetings”
Simon wishes to use this to prove that the Mayor can create content-based speech restrictions and stop people from making “abusive” comments, but PAC 45349 really deals only with timing restrictions. PAC 45349 does deal with content restrictions in one sense: it clearly states that a public body cannot create speech restrictions requiring members of the public to speak only about agenda items – this is exactly one of the restrictions that Marlin placed upon speakers!
Mr. Simon also cited 2018 PAC 55462, emphasizing that “the right to address public officials is not without limits”. This citation is being used by Simon to support content-based speech limitations, but PAC 55462 was specifically and only about time limits. No component of PAC 55462 dealt with speech content. In fact, PAC 55462 actually proves Simon wrong and imputes guilt upon Marlin because it clearly states that a public body must follow its formally recorded meeting rules, not just its established practice, and certainly not some newly invented rules slapped together last-minute by the Mayor.
Mr. Simon has cited 2019 PAC 59187, yet no portion of this PAC opinion supports the content-based speech limitations put forth by Mayor Marlin. In fact, PAC 59187 nicely demonstrates an OMA violation by a Mayor who no longer wished to hear the comments of a particular individual (sound familiar?). PAC 59187 only serves as further evidence that Mayor Marlin was also in the wrong.
Simon then referenced Milestone v. City of Monroe, a court case wherein a woman was banned from a senior center for constantly picking fights, shouting at people, and throwing things, to the extent that the Monroe Senior Citizens Board determined that she was a safety hazard. Simon claims this case as evidence that Marlin can create speech restrictions at Urbana City Council meetings.
Mr. Simon then referenced Vega v. Chicago Board of Education, which involved a member of the public repeatedly violating the recorded speaking rules, threatening to continue to do so, physically interrupting other speakers, and rushing up to the dais and shaking her fist at a board member. This case has no relevance to the September 14th Urbana City Council meeting, and does not in any way mimic or represent the actions of any person at any recent public meeting in Urbana.
Simon then referenced Sandefur v. Village of Hanover Park, wherein a person was removed from speaking at a public meeting because he brought a gun into the board meeting. When people saw the gun on his hip he was removed by law enforcement officers. It isn’t clear how Simon means to compare this incident to Urbana City Council meetings held on Zoom.
Simon then referenced LA. Rana Enterprises, Inc. v. City of Aurora, which is a case about public input at public meetings, but it is completely out of scope since it predates the Illinois Open Meetings Act law on the public’s right to speak at meetings. This case has no modern-day application to the OMA.
In conclusion, Mr. Simon could not supply any compelling or even slightly compelling PAC opinions or case law which would support Mayor Marlin’s actions. In fact, every PAC opinion cited by Mr. Simon actually demonstrates an OMA violation by a different public body, and each only serves to support the claims I’ve made of similar violations by Mayor Marlin (and Dennis Roberts, and Julie Laut). Some of the citations and extrapolations given by Simon indicate to me that he is either extremely incompetent or extremely dishonest.
-Christopher Hansen, Urbana
The following documents support the claims I’ve made above:
2020-09-14 Urbana City Council OMA Violations Request for Review (PAC 64787) Initial Complaint
Urbana City Code Section 2-4 Public Meetings
2020-09-14 Urbana City Council OMA Violations Request for Review (PAC 64787) 2nd Complaint Letter
Illinois Open Meetings Act Request for Review 2019 PAC 59187
Illinois Open Meetings Act Request for Review 2018 PAC 55462
Illinois Open Meetings Act Request for Review 2016 PAC 45349