1st Amendment Black Hole Award goes to San Bernardino County

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  • From: dawncrawford71
  • Posted: 1/28/2006 2:28 PM

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BLACK HOLE AWARDS GIVEN FOR
BLATANT DISREGARD OF FIRST AMENDMENT

Claremont, Inglewood and officials in San Bernardino County were cited Saturday by the California First Amendment Coalition for their "blatant disregard" for open government and First Amendment laws.

Each year, the coalition confers its Black Hole Award to government agencies or individuals whose actions stifle public participation in government and violate public records and public access laws.

"This year's Black Hole winners are truly losers to the extreme. San Bernardino County has become a place where speaking your mind can land you in jail, and the cities of Inglewood and Claremont have aggressively attacked critics and steadfastly refused to release clearly public information to citizens and even to an elected Inglewood City Council member," said Kent Pollock, CFAC executive director.

The Black Hole Award gets its name from a heavenly body that not only emits no light but tends to swallow nearby sources of illumination. The awards were announced Saturday at the Fifth Annual First Amendment Assembly held at California State University, Fullerton.

San Bernardino County Supervisors, District Attorney Dennis Stout and Mayor Judith Valles were cited "For the county's extraordinary series of arrests, prosecutions and jail sentences targeting several citizens for exceeding speaking time limits and talking out of turn or 'off-topic' at public meetings."

The Inglewood City Council was cited "For its extraordinary disregard for the informational needs of its residents, and for its aggressiveness in isolating one of its own members who tries to get financial and other accountability information to the public."

And Claremont received a Black Hole Award "For its campaign of intimidation, disinformation and unlawful secrecy, often in response to criticism of official policy, designed to reduce the public's knowledge of and involvement in their local government."

The actual awards will be presented to the agencies at upcoming council and supervisors' meetings by CFAC General Counsel Terry Francke. Here are the details of each award:

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY

For the county's extraordinary series of arrests, prosecutions and jail sentences targeting several citizens for exceeding speaking time limits and talking out of turn or "off-topic" at public meetings.

The most extreme case involves Jeff Wright, currently facing recommitment to jail after serving two confinements totaling most of a year for a series of assertive but nonviolent exchanges with public bodies in the county. District Attorney Dennis Stout's office, arguing that Wright was released too early last month, began recommitment proceedings after the homeless man told the board of supervisors that one of its members, up for re-election next month, should be in jail himself. That supervisor has admitted accepting leisure trips paid for by a bond underwriting firm that landed lucrative work from the county in recent years, but has settled a civil action brought against him by paying $7,500 to the county.

The nearly two year jail sentence the district attorney says is Wright's debt to society also contrasts with the year and a day to which another county official-the former investment officer-was recently sentenced in federal court for conspiring to accept bribes in return for contracting favors.

Wright's most recent time in jail was ordered after he was found to have violated probation for earlier convictions concerning speech at public meetings. His "last straw" offense consisted in questioning San Bernardino Mayor Judith Valles about how limits on citizens' speaking time were being applied. At the meeting in question he had intended to speak for three minutes on each of three items on the city council's agenda, but was told after three minutes that his time was up because action on the three items had been combined under a single motion. He questioned the mayor for clarification of this ruling, she adjourned the meeting and explained it to him, and the matter ended there-except that weeks later he was taken back to court and found guilty of violating terms of his probation and ordered to jail. When he protested the sentence-"This is a ripoff of the taxpayers!"-SuperiorCourt Judge John Wade summarily added five days to his sentence.

Wright's stringof offenses leading to his officially estimated cumulative sentence of almost two years includes one at a supervisors' meeting at which the agenda included a proposal to charge a fee for commercial filming or videotaping in the county. Wright asked if the fee would apply to a rock music group's videotaping of its own concert, and his comment was ruled out of order. Another incident supporting his jail time was a case of mistaken identity in which he was seized by four deputies in the county administration building after another man was reported to have uttered a threat. Wright spent 17 days in confinement awaiting his trial and conviction, not on the threat allegation, but on a charge of interfering with a peace officer.

Earlier this year the city of San Bernardino attempted to get a permanent injunction keeping Wright away from Mayor Valles by distances that would have made it hazardous for him to navigate city hall. The permanent order was denied after the mayor admitted that its basis had been an isolated incident and did not cause her to fear him.

That incident-Wright's angry confrontation with the mayor-had occurred when he learned that after ordering him removed from a meeting she had told a newspaper that he liked to be thrown in jail and wanted to be a martyr.

Bob Nelson, another gadfly, is facing a reduced jail sentence for refusing to leave the speaker's podium at a supervisor's meeting, in protest over his perception that the citizen comment limitations were being unfairly and arbitrarily applied. An attempt to jail him for a full year was abandoned after the appellate panel of the superior court ruled that he had not, as charged by the district attorney, resisted arrest, but had exited the meeting quietly when taken into custody. His ongoing complaint is the supervisors' propensity to pack the consent agenda with scores of items-some of them quite controversial-and yet allow citizens only three minutes to comment on them all.

Also this summer, activist Shirley Goodwin was removed from a supervisors' meeting and arrested after making three one-sentence comments from the audience, each challenging how limits on speakers' time and topic restrictions had been imposed on two other citizens and herself.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Jon Mikels, as well as county prosecutors, say the punished speakers have only themselves to blame, and there is no doubt that these citizens are extraordinarily adamant and occasionally abrasive in pressing their issues before elected bodies. But we are aware of no other county where a citizen's insistence on getting official attention risks a greater loss of liberty than a public official's readiness to accept contractors' favors.