On June 17th, 2024, the Board of Alderman held its annual FY24-25 budget hearing. The hearing permits citizens to question spending in any City division or department on a $320,000,000 budget.
Alderman Dowd has established ground rules but often changes them during the hearing. If he doesn’t like how citizens question the spending of taxpayer money, inane banter and abusive badgering begin.
Alderman Dowd instituted a “one bite at the apple” rule, giving citizens one chance per division/department to raise questions. However, Mr. Dowd stated that if any citizen had further questions, he would permit them to return to the microphone to address them at the hearing’s end.
The end came, and Mr. Dowd apparently forgot his rule and requested a motion to table the budget. I challenged his elimination of the public’s right to raise additional questions. Alderman Dowd reinstituted his previous rule.
Once Dowd restored the meeting format, citizens returned to the microphone, offering engaging comments and questions. I addressed the over $500,000 in outside legal counsel costs taxpayers were funding to defend the City in its non-compliant processing of RTK requests. The Mayor was cantankerous and defensive and, as a licensed attorney and defendant in some of these cases, called me out as a citizen who always loses. He demanded, “Drop all the lawsuits, they go nowhere,” claiming, “Volunteers of the City were sued, “everything gets dismissed’, “You get sanctioned.” Aldermen Dowd agreed with him. (I did not sue volunteers of the City). The outcome of my latest RTK lawsuit on the records in the Economic Development office was not dismissed or denied.
While the Mayor and I were sparring, Alderman Moran moved to Table the Budget, effectively killing the public’s right to question. Mr. Moran made an unconstitutional and undebatable motion. Upon calling the role, Alderpersons Moran, O’Brien, and Timmons voted to close the meeting abruptly. The remaining 10 Aldermen voted to maintain public debate, so the motion failed.
Mr. Moran then asks for a “point of personal privilege,” stating, “I made the motion to cool the temperature in the room. (inaudible) and I think it cooled a bit.” Thicken your skin, Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran’s motion was designed to remove our First Amendment rights, killing our speech. If you listen to the discussion between the Mayor and myself, neither party was shouting or yelling. Sure, the Mayor was badgering and critical and out to embarrass me, but it isn’t Moran’s job to protect the Mayor’s reputation by silencing the public’s speech. He represents the Citizens.
Mr. Moran should read New York Times Co. v Sullivan (1964). The Court reasoned that defending the principle of wide-open debate will inevitably include “vehement, caustic, and…unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” In this case, the Mayor delivered sharp attacks on Ortolano.
Ironically, in this hearing, the Mayor requests that I drop my lawsuits, including my Federal case, a 1983 First Amendment Rights lawsuit filed in 2022, naming numerous City leaders. Moran and others need a civics lesson in honoring our constitutional rights and must welcome open and heated “debate” from people they don’t like, especially on a $320,000,000 city budget.
I will continue to pursue my right to free speech and records.
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