09/03/2020
The McLean County Property meeting met Thursday, September 3rd, 2020. On the agenda was an ordinance to regulate protests & marches on County property & highways. This ordinance had been originally placed on a Stand-up meeting for the Property Committee on the 18th of August after internal complaints from County Administration, Sheriff Jon Sandage, & State’s Attorney Don Knapp. However, it was tabled until today. (I write in detail about the proposed ordinance here.)
County Administration Camille Rodriguez & Don Knapp spearheaded the ordinance. The county’s policy on protests are “Essentially, there was no policy,” Rodriguez said. “As long ago as even the beginning of my tenure, I had hoped to address this by having some sort of policy through an ordinance. Now, of course, we have had so many more events occur on county property. Some of the folks that are holding those are asking for permission and others do not.”
The ACLU of Central Illinois wasn’t having it. “We live in an amazing county and are part of a vibrant community. McLean county is home to a wide range of voices and many nuanced views around the many political & social issues of our day. Put simply – this ordinance creates unnecessary and unconstitutional hurdles to protesters seeking to access some of McLean County’s traditional locations for the people to gather, including the court house.”
According to District 4 County Board Member Logan Smith, a letter from ACLU of CI written by their attorneys carefully laid out how passing such an ordinance would not only be completely unconstitutional, but also open the county up to costly litigation defending the ordinance.
District 2 Member William Friedrich asked the Director of Facilities Tim Daugherty what kind of incidents have occurred at the Law & (In)justice Center that required staff time.
Daugherty could only really name one incident, on August 8th, when attendees of a fine arts celebration of black existence, chalked up the plaza with water-soluble chalk. For some reason, he felt it was necessary to waste tax payer dollars paying some poor worker to go clean it up. There’s this thing called rain, that does it for free.
When the moment of the ordinance finally came down to vote, District 5 Member Elizabeth Johnston immediately put forth a motion to table the ordinance, effectively ending any further discussion on the issue. District 7 Member Jacob Beard raised his hand to 2nd, but only if there can be open discussion on the item. Johnston can be seen shaking her head in frustration at Beard. A motion to table, means to end discussion and action on this item. What’s the point of seconding the end of discussion only to qualify it with more discussion? There was a particularly tense inquiry into the technicalities of the meeting rules where Beard is pontificating with his gamer headphones on what could be if we could only just think about it, while Johnston is trying her absolutely hardest not scream into a muted microphone in frustration.
Beard ultimately withdrew his 2nd, but Board Member Smith quickly offered his 2nd. Finally, a vote was demanded on the question. The motion to table passed 5-2 ending discussion on restricting 1st amendment rights.1
District 7 Jacob: No
District 9 Bloomfield: Yes
District 5 Johnston: Yes
District 4 Smith: Yes
District 1 Thompson: No
District 2 Friedrich: Yes
District 10 Barnett: Yes.
The ordinance was tabled. Of course, it can be brought up again at a later date, but that’s how democracy works. It will likely only be brought up if at least 4 members want to but that seems unlikely.
Board Member Johnston had this to say to the Pantagraph following her victory, “I motioned to table the Ordinance because I felt it was hastily written with no input from the committee. As County officials we have sworn to uphold the US Constitution and the restrictions presented too great a risk to First Amendment rights to free speech and to peaceably assemble, therefore I felt the best course of action was to reject the ordinance. I am grateful to the other Property committee members for their votes.”
