43
Campbell politics spill off social media and into city hall
Councilwoman: Mayor may be violating residents’ rights
CAMPBELL
Councilwoman Juanita Rich, D-4th, called a special city council caucus to propose a policy governing how elected officials use social media.
Rich expressed concerns that the Campbell Ohio Residents Forum for Political and Social Discussion, which is managed by Mayor Nick Phillips, has become a “limited public forum” and that banning residents from the page may constitute a violation of their First Amendment rights.
“We need to nip it in the bud so our city isn’t liable for violating people’s First Amendment rights,” Rich said. “The mayor needs to shut down that page. He’s out of control on that site.”
Rich and Phillips will run against each other for mayor this November.
Rich, as well as a number of other residents who have been banned from the Facebook page, allege the mayor restricts anyone who criticizes him from participating. Many of the banned users have joined a secondary group, Campbell Red Devil Chatter, that is not maintained or moderated by city officials.
Phillips maintains that, as his page is privately run, he has the right to ban, and that he bans only people who have been abusive.
Phillips said people have sent insulting and harassing private messages to his friends and family.
“I probably have 100 people blocked on that page who came in and had agendas. And so many of those accounts are fake accounts people use to get back into the group,” Phillips said. “The accounts I do have blocked attacked other people on my page. It’s my personal page and where I keep my residents informed of what’s going on in the city.”
Phillips and Rich aren’t the first politicians to argue over the First Amendment rights of social media users.
A 2007 court case in the U.S. District Court out of the Eastern District of Virginia, Davison v. Loudon County Board of Supervisors, involved the chairwoman of Loudon County’s board of supervisors blocking a resident from her personal Facebook page that she used for engaging in dialog with her constituents.
The resident sued, alleging his First Amendment rights had been violated, and the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff.
In a higher-profile case, Knight Institute v. Trump, President Donald Trump was sued in a New York U.S. District Court for blocking critical followers on Twitter.
The suit alleged that Trump’s Twitter account was a “public forum” as he was an elected official using it to disseminate information to the American public. The courts ruled Trump could not block Twitter users who express political views he finds disagreeable. The White House has since appealed the ruling.
Phillips, who said he did not receive an invitation to the meeting, claimed the meeting was little more than a political ploy by his mayoral rival.
“She called a council meeting, out of summer recess, pulling them away from their summer activities and whatever they were doing with their families, disrupting their days, just to have a meeting to further her political agenda,” Phillips said. “It’s repulsive, it’s disgusting and it’s politics at its lowest form.”
Phillips blocked Rich’s daughter from his residents’ forum page for campaigning for her mother’s mayoral run.
“They’re not going to campaign on my page. They want to come to my page and campaign to my followers. I’m sorry, but that’s just not happening. She can do that on her own page.”
Rich said she invited the mayor by notifying him of the meeting through a social media post, and that the meeting was clearly open to everyone as was legally required under Ohio Sunshine Laws.
“Ideally, if people want to know what’s happening in the city, they would come to meetings,” Rich said. “But the mayor usually doesn’t say two words at our meetings. Most of the time he just waits to say what he wants to say on his site.”
City council agreed it would take the matter to Law Director Brian Macala for legal guidance before taking further action. “They aren’t going to tell me I don’t have the right to monitor my own private page,” Phillips said. “Until a judge hands me a court order, I won’t pay attention to any ruling the council passes saying I can’t block people I think are abusive.”
Rich may sponsor legislation at a special meeting during the council’s summer recess to adopt a social media policy.