Fed-Up Government Officials Are Swatting Harder at Gadflies

Advocates for open government say politicians across the state are becoming increasingly intolerant of their critics, but San Bernardino, where the gadfly may become the area’s newest endangered species, is emerging as an emblem of that trend.

Officials statewide are balancing their charge to run an efficient government with their duty to run an open government--two notions that do not always jibe. As a result, many city councils, school boards and county supervisors are improperly limiting public comment, said Terry Francke, general counsel for the California First Amendment Coalition.

In Oceanside, the City Council sparked a controversy by imposing a time limit on public speeches. Garden Grove decided not to televise meetings because officials thought critics were grandstanding to cameras. After repeated spats with rambunctious critics in the Northern California city of Roseville, council members there adopted policies allowing police to escort rowdy speakers from the meeting.

But nowhere in the state have government critics had a harder time recently than in San Bernardino County, critics say. Four self-styled civic watchdogs have been arrested and three criminally prosecuted for disrupting public meetings. One is behind bars and another faces a possible jail term later this month for protesting three-minute time limits at the public microphone.

They have been prosecuted, says Upland attorney Marjorie Mikels, who helped represent one of them, “for speaking.”

Francke is a veteran advocate for open government in California whose nonprofit organization represents, among others, news organizations and citizen activists. He said San Bernardino County has gone to unusual lengths to crack down on gadflies.

“I’ve never heard of so many prosecutions for conduct like this, which may be stubborn but is not a menace to anyone,” he said.

At times the debate in San Bernardino has gotten a little silly. One of the gadflies has labeled the county’s campaign a “jihad.” One of their defense attorneys was herself tossed from a public meeting after she whipped out an accordion to protest a nuclear dump.

But there are serious issues swirling around. Perhaps most important: Are these out-of-control zealots who are interfering, as the county argues, with democracy and the public’s business? Or should the zealots be protected too, in the interest of free speech?

“I think it is in everyone’s interest for government to err on the side of chaos in the interest of democracy,” Francke said. “Public discourse is not always dignified or polite or deferential.”

But San Bernardino County officials say the activists they prosecute have gone too far. One has been accused of spitting in an official’s face. Another refused to leave a public meeting and started a rumble at a City Council meeting in front of local fifth-graders visiting to learn how government works. Officials have removed the gadflies dozens of times from meetings they disrupted.

“We all have the right to 1st Amendment speech, as long as we act within the parameters and the rules,” said Beth Houser, a county prosecutor. “What would our society be like if we said, ‘We don’t like speeding rules, and we aren’t going to follow them’? What would happen?”

Houser said her office receives dozens of complaints from sheriff’s deputies and police officers who keep order at government meetings. But the district attorney only agrees to pursue criminal charges 5% of the time, she said.

“When we look at these cases, you have to show that there was substantial interference with the meeting. I’m looking for a lot,” she said. “The public is fed up and tired, and they want something done about it. They want to get some work done.”

Anyone who has been to a public meeting--a city council meeting, even a meeting of the local beautification committee--knows the type. They are gadflies, watchdogs who have made the public’s business their business--and, often, their obsession.

Later this month, the county’s best-known gadfly, Bob Nelson, will be sentenced for disrupting Board of Supervisor meetings. This is the result of Nelson’s long-running protest of county policies, including a rule limiting public comments to the board, in many cases, to three minutes.

Repeatedly, Nelson protested the rule by silently refusing to step down from the public podium. He insisted on taking the case to trial--mostly to prove a point--and he was convicted of three counts of disturbing a public meeting. He faces a possible sentence of a year in jail later this month.

“It’s not so bad,” said Nelson, 63, who spent 38 days in jail in 1990 after a similar protest. “Jail is kind of what you make of it.”

Nelson, a retired computer systems analyst, would join friend and comrade Jeff Wright behind bars. Like Nelson, Wright had disrupted public meetings dozens of times--and topped it off by shouting from the audience and branding politicians as fascists by offering Nazi salutes.

He spent a short stint in jail in 1996 and was released on probation with the caveat that he not disturb any more public meetings. That didn’t last long. In 1997, he was removed from a Board of Supervisors meeting after talking about an item that was not on the meeting agenda--something the county restricts.

Eventually, Wright--a homeless veteran who rides his bicycle to meetings but still manages to lug around boxes of documents--was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Another who has been prosecuted is Larry Singleton, who is appealing a conviction of resisting arrest at a San Bernardino City Council meeting. A fourth, Shirley Goodwin, has been arrested for disturbing a Board of Supervisors meeting but has not been charged.

Most government boards remain committed to the notion of open government. Some have even taken steps to embrace more public input recently. In March, for instance, Ventura County supervisors eliminated a system that had limited public comment to an early-morning time slot.

Sporadically, though, other government boards across the state are taking steps to limit public debate.

Francke said most of those steps come in one of two forms: The board either hires a police officer to stand by the public podium, which he believes scares some from speaking, or adopts strict rules about when members of the public can talk, how long they have to talk and what subjects they can talk about.

JoAnne Speers, general counsel for the League of California Cities, said local governments’ charge is not only to operate efficiently and provide access to the public, but to allow for a “as many people to participate . . . as possible.”

“Sometimes, a number of individuals have very lengthy thoughts that they want to share, and the council wants to make sure that others who want to contribute can,” Speers said. “It’s efficiency in receiving as much public comment as possible, not just efficiency for efficiency’s sake. . . . They need to make sure that everybody has a chance to speak, which may mean limiting some people’s time for speaking.”