Cypress Is Violating Free Speech Rights
I am particularly disturbed by recent actions of the Cypress City Council. In an apparent attempt to deny our citizens their right of free speech, the council has declared that only 10 minutes’ time would be given for each side of any subject during the oral communications segment of City Council meetings. And at the close of the meeting, only 30 minutes total would be given to all people who wish to address the City Council.
Our City Council has also decided to spend over $1,200 on a timer system to limit each speaker to three minutes. It seems to me in these tight times, it is a ridiculous waste of taxpayer dollars when an egg timer would work as well.
It is true that in recent months some have belabored the Shaw warehouse issue to death to the point of holding council meetings up for hours on end. I do not believe that they should be able to continue to do this. It is overkill to forever penalize all the citizenry just because this council chose not to control this one situation until it got completely out of hand.
Who knows what the next big issue will be to face our city. We do not want to be silenced in the future because the City Council doesn’t want to take the time to listen to the peoples’ views now.
LINDA KEENAN
Cypress
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