If you thought the threat of communism ended
when Ronald Reagan left The White House, think again.
The mayor and council of Hurricane, the
tiny town that won't protect its longtime citizens against excessive
noise by out-of-state construction companies, doesn't want to hear
any noise from complainers.
Sinking to a new low, the town's "leaders" are
taking hypocrisy to a new high, while stomping all over The
First Amendment.
February 4th, council passed the first reading
of an ordinance that will allow citizens to be thrown in jail-and
fined-if they make too much noise around city hall, its departments,
and the town's politicians. Monday night, the proposed ordinance
comes before council for a final vote.
The entire proposed ordinance is posted above
this story. In plain English, if a citizen protests too loud at City
Hall or anywhere else town business is being conducted, or protests
to one of the council members or mayor that person can be arrested
by a verbal order of the mayor, (currently Scott D. Edwards), jailed
for 10 days, and fined $100 by the town's Municipal Judge,
(currently Phyllis Smith).
PutnamLIVE.com sent Edwards an email
asking him for comment. So far, no response has been received. The
Hurricane Breeze is quoting Edwards as saying a "normal person"
won't have a problem. So PutnamLIVE.com included in the email a
question asking Edwards how he defines a "normal person."
The irony of this proposal is that Edwards is
the same person that screamed the "F-word" in front of a group of
children at one of his campaign stops last June.
Councilwoman Lana Call told Charleston's
Eyewitness News that the ordinance isn't fair.
"I don't see anything wrong with letting people
speak their mind," says Call.
Or does she?
Call is the only Hurricane City Councilmember
whose telephone phone numbers from neighbors of the Wal-Mart project
after they called her only a few times to complain about excessive
noise-which she refused to curtail.
Earlier this year Councilwoman Patty Hager
wrote PutnamLIVE.com saying, "I don't care about your First
Amendment rights." When called today, she claimed to know nothing
about the ordinance that passed a first reading earlier this
month-then she hung up the telephone before she could be asked
whether she would vote for it Monday.
Roy Vanater, a Hurricane resident who has been
vocal about the town's inept leadership doesn't like the law.
"It's an infringement on everything as far as I
see it," says Vanater. "I figure I'll be one of those people they
choose to fine or imprison."
"Council only meets once a month," says Devin
Anderson, who says he attends about six months a year. "They give
you only three minutes to speak. You can't talk about anything
in-depth for three minutes. They're hypocrites who want to jail
their critics."
PutnamLIVE.com asked about 30 people
around Hurricane what they thought of the ordinance. Most of the
comments can't be printed without violating decency standards. No
one favored the ordinance. Most want Scott Edwards and the council
to resign as an embarrassment to Hurricane over this issue.
Whether the ordinance passes after news spreads
remains to be seen. Another question that is being asked is whether
the law is constitutional.
Charleston lawyer Michael T. Clifford was
involved in a case last year where Hurricane's noise ordinance was
declared unconstitutional by a Putnam Circuit Judge. He called
Hurricane's council "incompetent" then, and isn't at all impressed
with this proposed ordinance.
"The
City of Hurricane has no power, either under federal or state law,
to cite a citizen in "contempt" for filing complaints with the town
or negative publicity about the incompetence of town government,"
claims Clifford. "Aside from the fact that "contempt" is a uniquely
judicial sanction and not an executive sanction, any code or
ordinance that would provide a chilling effect on an individual's
First Amendment rights is
per se
unconstitutional and will be so declared in a Court of Law."
Clifford predicts the contempt ordinance will
quickly be quashed by a circuit judge-if the council passes it
Monday night.
"If the Town proposes to adopt such an ordinance as described
herein," Clifford says, "It could, and should, be construed by the
electorate as the open invitation to file suit against the Town for
deprivation of civil rights under color of law."
PutnamLIVE.com will be at Monday's
meeting and will report on how the council votes on this issue-if it
does at all.
One final note: No one at City Hall has been
able to explain why contempts was misspelled as "contemps" at the
top of the proposed ordinance.
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