A person who spoke during the public participation section of Monday’s City Council meeting was removed from the meeting by a police officer
Councilman Lonnie Mixon, who presided during Council President Debbie Quinn’s absence, told Calvin Hunt to address the item he had requested be put on the agenda, or he would be removed from the meeting.
After Hunt continued speaking about what he claimed were problems that had not been fixed at Young Street Park, Mixon stopped him. “You’re finished,” Mixon said.
A police officer tapped Hunt on the shoulder and told him he had been asked to leave, and escorted him without incident from the meeting.
Speaker asked to leave meeting
Both speakers — black community activist Calvin Hunt and Paul Ripp, an opponent of the Publix development on Parker Road near his home — had spoken to the council during several recent meetings on the same subjects that they took up Monday night.
During a meeting last month, Quinn warned that the public comment period was for the general public and not for a few who wish to rail on a pet issue again and again. Those who insist on speaking to the council repeatedly on the same subject would be stopped and, if necessary, escorted by police from the chambers, she said
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GOD is good.
Who are they to stop someone from exercising his or her FIRST AMENDMENT right? Council “Lonnie Mixon,” is no more than another Hitler dominating people by using fear tactics. If the “black community activist Calvin Hunt” would do his research, he will find that the Council’s demand for someone to name the exact content of his or her speech is what they call a content based restriction on a person’s free speech and is what people say, “unconstitutional” or not acceptable. We have a right of redress of grivenances against the government and there is no governmental interest in limiting a person’s speech. At the council meeting, a person can address what he or she believes to be important whether the councilman wants to hear it or not is irrelevant. I suggest the city of Fairhope purchases a set of ear plugs for Mr. Mixon, which would be a lot cheapter that litigation for freedom of speech violation and so that Mr. Mixon will not get his city into financial trouble with persons who will unapologetically fight for their free speech rights which will cost the city in attorney fees.
Baldwin County has to be one of the worst places in the USA when it comes to violating BASIC constitutional rights such as freedom of speech; freedom of Religion; freedom of the press. These governmental officials, with the help of the good LORD, will subject themselves to the constituton in which they ignore unless challenged.
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