City officials at the Brighton City Council meeting last night issues several responses last night to a speech I gave and the generally large media reaction over the past three weeks. All of the public Council responses essentially blamed the media for mentioning the "annoyance" part when the City argued it was something else.
Video is available if you navigate the site from its front page - but the video is not user friendly for embeds like YouTube and doesn't include the second speech I made after the Council responded to public comments with its attack on the media (Brighton allows comments at the beginning and end of meetings, so they were sandwiched). I was much more emotional in the second speech (the Argus cameras had left by then) and critical of the Mayor for blaming the media for using the word "annoy" (the media was correct and doing its job).
1/8/09 - The City of Brighton’s so-called “annoying ordinance” was revisited at Wednesday night’s meeting. The original ordinance, written in the 1980s, made it a civil infraction to insult, molest or otherwise annoy anyone in a public place, and at the request of Police Chief Tom Wightman, amendments were made to it last month that officials say better define and allow the department to enforce it. Mayor Kate Lawrence explained that the law, which many other municipalities have, could apply to ongoing neighbor disputes, repeated bullying, unwanted and repeated text messaging or harassment do [sic] to a person’s race, sexual orientation, or religion. But Activist Chetly Zarko of Zarko Research and Consulting cited a supreme court case that says words like annoying, oppose, or insult cannot be defined behavior and varies by each individual’s interpretation. The origin of the ordinance was not explained at the December meeting and some council members had raised questions specifically about the word “annoying” so other media outlets had described it as “the annoying ordinance” – something Mayor Kate Lawrence took offense to. In a statement she blamed the Livingston County Daily Press and Argus report with that headline and the Associated Press news wire for the major media attention the rule has gotten. She told WHMI following the meeting that she would have made sure it was clear during the meeting what the ordinance was, where it originated and what the intent was – had she known it would’ve become such a hot topic. Despite the controversy, Lawrence says they have no intention of changing or repealing the ordinance. (LS)
And the Argus's written report on the second speech following the Mayor's attack on the media.
While Zarko told the council its intentions were probably well-motivated, he said the ordinances as written are unconstitutional and would be challenged if enforced.
Zarko took issue with some of the Lawrence's comments. Lawrence said this issue received so much media attention because headlines were picked up by the Associated Press, a news organization that provides stories across the country and world. She also said this story wasn't about the economic crisis.
Zarko said city officials were attacking the media for simply doing its job of reporting about rules that make it unlawful to be annoying to another person.
