Subject: March 6 Citizens Forum From: "TJ Johnson" Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 11:30:06 -0800 To: , , , , , , , , Honorable Mayor and Councilmembers, Let me begin by thanking you for your commitment to public service. As a Councilmember in the City of Olympia, I understand and appreciate the challenges of serving one’s community as an elected official. I also appreciate the fact that you understand the value of providing citizens an opportunity to communicate with their elected officials, and congratulate you on including a Citizens Forum as part of your Council agenda on a regular basis. However, I must note my disappointment at the manner in which the presiding officer at last night’s meeting responded to one citizen’s transgression of the established rules for comment during the Citizens Forum. After watching video of the situation, I believe the presiding officer should have been more flexible in the application of the procedures. Forcibly removing a citizen from a public meeting should come as only an absolute last resort. My analysis of the situation is that the decision to remove the citizen was premature and inappropriate. The citizen was obviously traumatized by his experience over the past several days. This should have been factored into the presiding officer’s decision to respond. At the Olympia City Council, we also allow citizens to communicate with us during a public comment period at the beginning of each meeting. We also have a policy of limiting testimony to three minutes. We also sometimes reduce that to less than three minutes if a number of people wish to address the Council. And we also have some individuals who ignore the policy. However, we have never reacted with the gross display of insensitivity I witnessed by your presiding office last night, and I find it inconceivable that our Mayor or presiding officer would ever order someone who violated the policy to be forcibly removed from our chambers. In the future, I would encourage you to be more creative and compassionate in how you choose to respond to transgressions of your Citizens Forum policies. I also encourage you to take seriously the allegations of police misconduct that you heard about last night. I have been on the scene at the Port of Tacoma at several points over the past week, though I was not there on Sunday when the first arrests were made. When I was present, I was quite concerned that the actions of the officers on the scene– including deployment of full riot gear and refusing to provide names or badge numbers when requested to do so - were setting the stage for confrontation. Please realize that with a strong majority of citizens in our region and across the country opposed to the occupation of Iraq and President Bush’s escalation of the conflict, and a Congress that seems incapable or unwilling to curb the excesses of the administration, protests and civil disobedience is likely to be more frequent in the future. And with a collective public sense that their pleas to the President and Congress fall on deaf ears, citizens are increasingly turning towards local elected officials for leadership on this issue. I urge you to take actions now to ensure policies and procedures are in place to guarantee the civil rights and personal safety to all who are involved. I also ask you to consider your obligations as elected officials to speak out against the war in Iraq, which is a clear violation of Article 6 of the US Constitution, a document each of you swore to uphold and defend when you accepted the oath of office. Thanks you again for your public service, and for your consideration of my comments. TJ Johnson tjjohnson@scattercreek.com 360-943-4596 (home)