Stuck pigs on the Bossier City Council squeal, a recent leaked audio clip reveals, that forecasts as a reactive attempt, its origins likely illegal, to restrict public input and comment on Council matters.
Over the past six weeks a majority faction on the Council has taken a public relations beating. Over a series of votes five of its members – Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free, and Vince Maggio, and Democrat Bubba Williams and no party Jeff Darby – have on as many as four occasions voted in a manner to obstruct the placing of term limits into the city charter, with two of those votes violating the charter itself. The amendment would set a three term, lifetime and retroactive limit that would prevent all but Maggio from running again in 2025.
Even if limits don’t make it into the charter in time to apply to that election – that majority bloc at the last Council meeting voted to ask Bossier Parish Registrar Stephanie Agee to step outside the law to decertify the voters’ petition that the charter forces the Council to call for an election on it, and also voted to pursue other legal action trying to derail the petition, both over questions about the petition’s format – extensive political damage detrimental to their continuing their political careers has happened. Probing and sometimes sharp-tongued citizen commentary when the items dealing with the petition and related issue of term limits have come up, illuminating hypocrisy and bad faith in the bloc’s actions that raises unflattering public awareness, not to mention producing visuals that beg to appear in negative campaign advertising down the road.
So, it would appear the bloc wants to minimize its bleeding. Internet podcasters/narrowcasters Bossier Watch, the duo of Rex Moncrief and Duke Lowrie, obtained anonymously audio recordings with the identifiable voices of Darby, Montgomery, and Council Clerk Phyllis McGraw, with others not identified. The sparse information attached gave few clues as to when and where it took place, but from the context of the remarks likely it occurred nearby the Council chambers not long after the last, Sep. 5, meeting where blistering comments occurred, in one instance prompting Montgomery to ask for city marshals to remove from the premises local web site operator Wes Merriott.
Although Council Pres. Free himself interacted intemperately with Merriott, he wisely declined given the troubling current Council rules that leave it open to First Amendment violations if administering these more than lightly. But that incident and other comments may lead to changes to rein in the public’s opportunity and ability to make comments.
The audio features Darby instructing McGraw to prepare changes to those rules to group all comments at a period near a meeting’s start, instead of the current format where commentary may occur on each agenda item and action. It also has Montgomery orally working out the mechanics of passing the resolution McGraw apparently is to prepare, which would have to occur during a Council meeting in public with comments permitted, where he notes that Free will be absent and assumes the remainder of his bloc with vote for it and the other two Councilors who have been supportive of term limits, Republicans Chris Smith and Brian Hammons, won’t.
Darby’s rationale is that the volume and tone of negative comments – being apparently oblivious or unwilling to admit that his and others’ actions spawn that – makes them “look bad” and terms the robustness “out of control behavior,” while Montgomery, egged on inappropriately by McGraw who as clerk should remain neutral on matters of policy, complains about frequent commenter David Crockett, alleging he’s “repetitive” and goes over the three-minute interval permitted for speakers. Never mind that the existing rules allow the presiding officer to prevent both of these if committed, although it’s far from certain Crockett does either and enforcement easily could run afoul of the First Amendment. Both the “look bad/out of control” complaint of Darby and the desire of Montgomery to limit further speech rather than explore rules enforcement display thinly-disguised arrogance and thin skins to any criticism.
Montgomery also was captured on audio making a comment that “… all I can say to the people of Bossier City is ‘welcome to Shreveport,’ ‘cause that’s what’s going to happen.” That appears to be an attempt to cast aspersions on Shreveport city council governance, for motives and meaning only guessable. Possibly he opines that the more robust exercise of citizen commentary of recent vintage makes the city less governable; i.e. shifts power out of his hands and a few others towards more democratic practice.
Actually, in many ways the Shreveport model is more restrictive than the one currently in use in Bossier City. Section 1.11 of its City Council Rules of Procedure requires prior registration at the meeting or online to speak at a point early in the agenda, specifying which agenda item is the subject. The chairman or vice chairman then decides the ordering of who speaks when, with commentary limited to three minutes unless unanimous council approval extends that (or suspends the rules by a two-thirds vote). An exception is made logically enough when an agenda item is to be added, when speaking can occur without prior notification. However, during administrative conferences, held the day prior to the regular meeting that reviews the agenda (a practice once followed by Bossier City’s), the public can bring up anything about which to speak.
Yet it’s difficult to see how a change to frontloaded commentary by itself would discourage citizen input, unless other rules are changed. Existing rules limit to four speakers of three minutes on each item with no more than 45 minutes total, and apparently with no mechanism for extensions beyond the three or 45 minutes. Shunting commentary to upfront only removes on-the-fly commentary from discussion by the Council prior to the comment period on each item.
But other changes really could stifle citizen input, given Louisiana statute puts almost no brakes on how far government can go to limit expression, with the law merely establishing that any rules be “reasonable” and requiring all bodies to provide a period before business as a whole or before each item except for school boards which have to have comment on each item. This can accommodate extremely restrictive regulations such as prior registration and presiding officers selection liberties, limitation to agenda items, short time limits for each item and in total, and vague “niceness” parameters.
Therefore, the Council majority at its most extreme to squelch potential criticism could take the Shreveport model putting comments before business but remove the general commentary option, keep the number of speakers per item restrictions, add the registration requirement, and shorten the total time period, and likely this would pass state constitutional muster. Thus, the public can expect a resolution incorporating some or all of these changes to appear at the Sep. 19 meeting, with Free expected to be absent. That would leave Smith as vice president in charge, creating an interesting situation as he is anticipated to be against this change.
As disappointing, yet illustrative of the majority’s bloc’s contempt for and fear of the public, as an extreme model would be, worse is how the closed-door meeting of at least two councilors likely violated statute. Public officials of collective decision-making bodies cannot circumvent quorum or transparency requirements by deciding official business by intentional arrangement (meaning on premises in a facility used for official business, or off premises if prearranged, or by outreach such as electronic communication including voice) even if the group in on the discussion contains less than a quorum. Possibly as many as two councilors in addition to Darby and Montgomery were present when they concocted their game plan – at least one other unidentified voice is audible that appears to come from another councilor – but the mentions of Free and two dissenting votes unlikely means any more were present. Even if only two or three had been present, discussion of the matter and vote-counting would violate the law if either or both of Darby and Montgomery subsequently brought up the matter to and polled other councilors on how they would vote.
To Darby, Montgomery, and their ilk, closed government and its unflattering aspects allowed to fester by this opaqueness increases their power and privilege and they must remain as inoculated as possible from criticism for the rot to continue and spread. Any attempt to increase restrictions on Council public commenting illuminates their escalating concern over the advent of burgeoning democratic discourse.
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