2012-05-31

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FREEPORT LIBRARY
144WMERRICKRD
FREEPORT NY 11520-3726
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Who will be
Father of the Year?
Freedom of speech debated at Village Hall
by Laura Schofer
Should edited or unedited versions of
Freeport village meetings be broadcast on
public access channels 18 and 44? That is
the question presently being debated by
Freeport Mayor Andrew Hardwick and
Freeport's Village Board of Trustees, who
have been wrangling for months over
Resolution 18/44. This document outlines
rules and procedures for broadcasting pub-licly
held village meetings - the village
board, the zoning board and site plan review
- on public access channels 18 and 44 as
well as on the village website.
Within the resolution is a clause which
has pitted Freeport Mayor Andrew
Hardwick against his fellow trustees -
Robert Kennedy, Carmen Pineryo, Jorge
Martinez and William White. This clause
refers to the use of editing public comments
prior to broadcasting a meeting. While it
states that all meetings and comments from
the public shall be recorded in their entirety,
the clause allows subject matter deemed in
violation of law, offensive, obscene, or a
threat to the safety of the public, village offi-cials
and its employees to be edited from the
broadcast version. However, all remarks in
their entirety can be viewed on the village
website.
"How can you tell the public that when
they come to a public meeting on their
municipality meeting night that whatever
they have to say during the public comment
is going to be excluded from the televised
edition? Why?" questioned Mayor
Hardwick who believes Resolution 18/44 is
"really a violation of everyone's freedom of
speech."
Village trustees also believe this is an
issue of "free speech." As recently as the
April 16 village board meeting, the four vil-lage
trustees tried to place Resolution 18/44
on the agenda for discussion and a possible
vote but Mayor Hardwick blocked their
efforts.
Trustee Carmen Pineryo, then acting on
behalf of the trustees, read a letter into the
record from their attorney A. Thomas Levin
(Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein). "While
you have the authority to preside at meetings
of the board, to preserve order and decorum,
you do not have authority to determine what
village business matters may be introduced,
discussed or voted upon by the board major-ity,"
reads the letter. "It is often, and proper-ly,
said that in this nation we are a govern-ment
of laws, not of men. This holds true for
the Village of Freeport as well. The law of
this state is clear as to the respective roles of
the mayor and trustees and the collective
powers of the Board of Trustees. It is also
clear that the majority of the board has the
sole authority to make such determinations
as have been proposed and take such actions
as it determines are appropriate, and that the
mayor has no authority unilaterally to pre-vent
it from doing so."
However, in.an interview with Sophia
Johnson on behalf of The Leader, Mayor
Hardwick said, " I'm not saying that the
trustees don't have the authority to imple-ment
policy and procedures - what I'm say-ing
is that they don't have the right to take
away the people's First Amendment right
under the U.S. Constitution."
Resolution 18/44 - two issues
"There are two issues here," explained
Trustee William (Bill) White in a telephone
interview with The Leader. "The first issue
is bringing the resolution to the floor and
then the second issue has to do with what's
in the resolution - the editing of comments.
The board's thinking is that we must put it
before the public to discuss. But he [Mayor
Hardwick] won't put it out there because he
disagrees with it."
Mayor Hardwick sees it differently;
"They want to take away many of the
day-to-day operational rights of the
mayor. They're [the village trustees] try-ing
to get me to agree to relinquish my
authority - in many cases - with respect
to this network. This network was
designed to have transparency for the
residents. I promised the people of
Freeport when I ran for mayor that I
would have access."
(continued on page 3)
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