Death of the Public Square

Closing the Doors of Discussion

Douglas County Commissioners, closed public comments on non-agenda items (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/douglas-county-commissioners-eliminate-general-comment-on-non-agenda-items/ar-BB1hdxib). This follows what the Omaha City Council had done years ago. I suppose there is some State law or court ruling which determines how such public comments are handled. However, the President or Chair of the legislative body is supposed to take action when comments are not germane to the legislative body. Perhaps such responsibility should have been placed on the County Clerk. The banning of public comments on non-agenda items is the result of the open public meetings laws (https://ago.nebraska.gov/open-meetings) however, this does not prevent “the right of a public body to make reasonable rules and regulations regarding the conduct of persons attending, speaking at, videotaping, or recording its meetings.” 

Much of the value of attending these proceedings was the open public comments period. The Commissioners appeared to be confused by the restriction on their own ability to respond to such public comments. However, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine clarified this matter years ago (https://omaha.com/news/local/douglas-county-board-keeps-public-comment-period-kleine-says-members-can-respond-within-limits/article_d8206669-39e9-54ed-898b-ea95ec8d6426.html).

Also, if public comments are such a problem why not merely reduce them to once a month and not have them at every meeting? With the ban on open public comments, there really is no reason to attend such meetings unless you are on the agenda. This means much of what these legislative bodies do will be lacking in scrutiny. At the same time, we all lose out on hearing the concerns of our fellow citizens who have the courage to speak publicly simply because an item is not on the agenda. I am upset by this because the negatives outweigh the positives in ending the public comments. My concerns about masks during the pandemic were only possible due to the public comments period at the Douglas County Commissioners meetings. In fact, was wrongfully berated by deceased Commissioner Mike Boyle. His daughter Maureen is now my representative on the Douglas County Board and has the same impulse to shut people up.

Neither the Douglas County Commissioners nor the City Council seem to value the great difficulty many people have to overcome in speaking publicly as well as surrendering their privacy by revealing not merely their name but their home address in a public forum. I do and stridently so. Way too often, important issues I wish to share with elected officials are not on the agenda. I know, only by public testimony,  will my criticism of their errors, will they will seek reform.  The decision of these legislative bodies has been to kill off the voice of the vast majority of those who have the courage to speak to avoid the mere chance of a few bad actors. These legislative bodies should have consulted with the Nebraska Attorney General as well as other legislative bodies, such as the public schools, and how they handle public comments on non-agenda items.

Omaha Public Libraries ran into similar problems with meeting rooms and the open meetings laws. The meetings had to be open to the public, but in doing so, any meeting could be sabotaged by malcontents. The end result is the public libraries are not very conducive to the many meetings people would like to have. The taxpayers money spent on meeting rooms is being wasted.

The Omaha World-Herald has had a similar problem with their Public Pulse section as it is no longer daily. Apparently, letters to the editor are not profitable. Additionally, people prefer to post to Facebook but you can get chased off Facebook or effectively muted out of existence if you are not aligned with the mob and their thoughts. Facebook, for whatever good it provides, is largely run by emotionally distraught people addicted to social media. Realistically, without frequent open public forums, people tend to lose perspective on just how diverse opinions actually are within their own communities.

Perhaps this no longer matters for the legislative bodies meeting in the Douglas County building. Parking can be difficult and requires an expense. Going through security is annoying. Now with public comments gone, why waste the time? However, all these restrictions intensify a more dire problem. People, without much thought of what they are saying or why they are saying what they are saying, will flood elective officials with a mass of manipulative emotional nonsense by email. This causes the voices of cowardly people to be amplified when more disciplined and courageous voices reflect better policy. At the same time, every malcontent, without any other means of expressive outlet, will show up at the annual budget meetings resulting in a circus of events.