Cypress city council members are now prohibited from disparaging each other from the public dais – a move that is raising first amendment questions.
A new ordinance – requested by Councilman Leo Medrano and adopted unanimously last month – is intended to keep elected leaders from hurling personal attacks towards one another during city council meetings.
David Loy, Legal Director for the First Amendment Coalition, said elected officials can make rules for order but they still have first amendment rights.
“To impose restrictions as you may not disparage is essentially to restrict speech based on viewpoint,” he said in a Wednesday phone interview. “Part of the essence of political speech is to criticize people who hold office. That’s exactly why we have the First Amendment.”
The new rule comes on the heels of former longtime City Manager Peter Grant resigning following unspecified misconduct allegations by another longtime city department head Doug Dancs at a public city council meeting in April.
[Read: Filling a Leadership Vacuum in Cypress After Misconduct Allegations]
It also comes as former City Council member Scott Minikus has hurled accusations towards Medrano and Mayor David Burke from the dais at two recent meetings in the wake of Grant’s resignation – accusations that Burke has described as unsubstantiated.
Burke said in a Monday email to the Voice of OC that city hall is a workplace and employees should not be threatening and using profane language towards each other.
“Council members should focus on the business at hand rather than using meetings as a platform to make personal attacks and absurd accusations. All of that is counterproductive to what’s best for our city,” he wrote.
Burke also said in a follow up email that the updated decorum rules are not in response to just one incident.
“They are in response to a series of incidents that included a council member using profane and intimidating language, and repeated meetings in which a council member engaged in such ugly personal attacks that multiple residents walked out of the meetings in disgust,” he wrote.
“Nobody is being banned from making any remarks. We are simply setting an expectation that council members should focus on city issues rather than using meetings as a platform for character assassination and conspiracy theories.”
Medrano and Minikus – who recently announced that he will be resigning from the city council effective Oct. 1 because he is moving out of California – each did not respond to emailed questions on Sept. 29.
On Sept. 22, officials voted unanimously to adopt the ordinance that encourages council members to be more courteous and respectful with their colleagues and prohibits disparaging comments at meetings.
“While the council is in session, the council members must preserve order and decorum, and a council member shall neither by conversation, by the utterance of loud, threatening, profane, disparaging or abusive language, or by engaging in any other disorderly conduct at any council meeting, delay or interrupt the orderly conduct of council proceedings,” reads the ordinance.
Medrano called for the ordinance at the September 8 meeting, saying from the dais that at the end of the Aug. 25 closed session meeting, Minikus cursed and yelled at both him and Burke, demanding they shut up.
“I felt the need to get up from my seat, open the door to the conference room and call law enforcement officers into the room,” Medrano said at the meeting. “This resulted in even more profane words coming from Council member Minikus, along with a verbal warning from him directed at me.”
In his remarks from the dais, Medrano added that he later went to a restaurant but left after Minikus entered the restaurant and called Medrano a coward as he was departing.
“There were plenty of witnesses council members at the restaurant that would dispute Mayor Pro Tem Medrano’s accusations,” Minikus responded publicly at the Sept. 8 meeting.
Burke said the council comments section of the city council meeting is not a time for Minikus to make unsubstantiated claims about his colleagues.
“How many residents have to send emails or make public comments asking you to please stop before you will listen? You’re turning our meetings into an embarrassment with these personal attacks,” he said at the Sept. 8 meeting.
Councilwoman Bonnie Peat said council members can disagree without smearing each other – something she accused Burke of doing.
“If you have a disagreement, you can say you have a disagreement, you could say you voted no on that because I disagreed with X,” she said from the dais on Sept. 8. “You don’t have to smear the other council members. You don’t have to smear the city in the process.”
Minikus was admonished by his colleagues last year after he publicly blamed two of his colleagues, including Burke, for a California Voting Rights Act lawsuit and alleged they leaked the city’s legal strategy to the plaintiffs.
[Read: Cypress City Council Admonishes Mayor For Accusing Colleagues of Misconduct]
At the Aug. 25 meeting following Grant’s resignation, Minikus accused Burke of orchestrating Dancs’ appearance at the April city council meeting where he made allegations against Grant – something Burke has denied and called a conspiracy theory.
Under the new ordinance, city council members cannot disparage each other during council meetings or interrupt their colleagues or applaud or boo or make gestures or sounds that interrupt the recognized speaker.
The ordinance also calls on officials to exercise “self-control”, be open-minded to different viewpoints, be courteous and respectful to each other as well as work as a team.
“Their decisions and public statements shall prioritize the public’s interest over their personal or political goals or objectives,” reads the amended ordinance.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.