An outrageous Lawrence City Council meeting is just one example of political discord at the local level. Commission meetings in Lawrence are built to solicit and hear public input. On nearly every agenda item, citizens are given up to three minutes apiece to weigh in. There is even a section of the meeting to hear public comments about city business that isn’t on the agenda. I covered the Lawrence City Commission years ago as a young journalist, you see. There was always a culture of vibrant public input — I can remember the gadflies and their names; the meetings could stretch deep into the night — and there could be hurt feelings. But one could watch the process and come away with a firm sense that the public’s business was being done. Not so much now. Dealing with the commenters consumes an inordinate amount of the commission’s time and resources, mental and otherwise. They’ve changed the rules — pushing the main comment session to the end of the meeting, no longer broadcasting that portion on the city’s YouTube channel. And they’re fighting a lawsuit from another notorious commenter, Justin Spiehs, who says his First Amendment rights have been curtailed by the commission for being a “troublemaker and instigator” at meetings. It all resembles a real-life “denial of service” attack — that form of cyber-hacking that shuts down websites by flooding them with an overflow of useful traffic. And you have to ask: Why would anybody sign up for public service, simply to endure all this?
Source: The Iola Register
