Urbana City Attorney James Simon delivered what can only be interpreted as a threat to residents who have been speaking out about corruption within the Urbana City government. The Council was discussing an ordinance put forth by Mayor Diane Marlin and James Simon which attempts to severely limit speech of residents at public meetings and Simon felt the need to center himself in the discussion.
The Mayor made a spectacle of herself at the September 14 City Council meeting when she invented her own new speaking rules and time limits which resulted in Marlin interrupting and muting multiple residents during public input. She then brought forth new legislation to the Committee of the Whole meeting on September 21st which would validate her actions and give her similar powers at future meetings.
The Council did not decide to move forward with Marlin’s ordinance, but they did hold a discussion, which included questions about what defines “abusive” language. This is where James Simon contemplated issuing lawsuits against residents who point out corrupt or illegal behavior by government officials:
Simon speaks about defamation here as though he is justifying the Mayor’s power to impose injunctions upon certain speakers, but defamation is a cause of action that can be utilized in a civil lawsuit. It is not a tool that a public body can use in the moment or to place prior restraints upon speech. No matter how many times Diane Marlin claims otherwise, the Mayor is not allowed to play judge and jury while someone is speaking at a public meeting, with the goal of calculating “defamation” real-time and cutting someone off mid-sentence. Doing so would violate the speaker’s right to due process.
What Simon is suggesting is that he personally and/or the City of Urbana may decide to file lawsuits against residents who speak at public meetings and allege misconduct or unethical behavior by their government.
Mr. Simon seems to be unhappy that residents have suggested that he is corrupt. The irony is that limiting free speech is exactly the kind of thing that a corrupt public official would attempt to do.
Threatening legal action against the residents of Urbana for participating at public meetings is perhaps one of the most insane and tyrannical things I’ve observed in local government. The fact that none of the Urbana City Council members were appalled or even mildly bothered by this is a demonstration of how normalized corruption has become in the Urbana government.
Of course, no commentary from James Simon would be complete without him wandering off into irrelevant territory. Simon attempted to connect his previous claims with invented notions of speakers calling people “foul names” and making “vicious attacks”. I expect this refers to something along the lines of calling someone “fat”, or “bald”, or “an ugly piece of shit”. The problem is, this type of language is virtually non-existent at Urbana public meetings, so why are we talking about it?
The simple truth is that there are many people within the Urbana City government who are engaged in misconduct, and the residents of Urbana are aptly pointing it out. Instead of owning their problems, Marlin, Simon, and friends mean to snuff out the voices of their critics.
-Christopher Hansen, Urbana