Souza says ACLU Complaint filed over public comments at May 12 Council meeting--Council shuts down free speech disucssion

Normally minutes of the Crossville city council meetings are handled in the consent agenda without discussion or controversy. That was not the case during the June regular meeting.

Council member Pete Souza requested that the minutes be pulled from the consent agenda and acted upon separately. Minutes for May 17 and 23 meeting were approved with no discussion and councilman Jesse Kerley moved to approve the minuets of the regular May meeting held on May 12.

Souza addressed the minutes saying the city attorney Will Ridley had looked into the matter of paraphrasing the actions at the meeting in the minutes. Souza added that there was nothing wrong with that practice. “However,” Souza continued, “there are some omissions in exactly what was said.”

Souza said a constituent came to him and showed a complaint that was turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on an alleged violation of First Amendment rights and that was the reason for his pulling the matter aside to discuss.

“What comes of that (complaint), I don't know,” said Souza. “I'm not involved with it. So basically, at this point I want to make a comment that the contents of May 12 are not inclusive of everything that was said at that meeting.”

A roll call vote on approving the minutes passed unanimously with council member Pamala Harris absent.

Near the end of the agenda, Mr. Souza had requested an item to discuss what was captioned as “Discussion and possible action on failure to comply with the standard rules and Robert's Rules of Order during the May 12, 2016 regular scheduled meeting, and violation of first amendment rights.”

The main thrust of the first amendment complaint is that council members interrupted a public comment by Jeff Dahlberg at the end of the May 12 meeting during his three minutes telling him that he could not make public attacks against any council members during his time to speak. Dahlberg was speaking on behalf of the Crossville Recall and Crossville Citizens for Good Government website.

Souza started out on the item saying he was requesting three minutes to address the issues involved and after comments from Mr. Kerley about what procedure should be followed, Souza moved that he be allowed the time he requested and the matter was supported by Mayor Mayberry. Kerley stressed that any discussion should be on the motion only and not Mr. Souza's comments. A vote on the motion to allow Souza to speak was quickly voted down in another tie vote with Souza and Mayberry in favor, Wyatt and Kerley opposed.

Kerley questions info on Recall website--Jeff Dahlbergh responds--questions remain.

An item on the agenda of the May Crossville city council meeting requested by councilman Jesse Kerley was to question Howard Burnette, the man that leads the group behind the recall efforts against council members Danny Wyatt and Pam Harris.

Kerley said there was information he had read on the site that he questioned but had since been changed.  Also, Howard Burnette was not present at the meeting so Kerley made brief comments and the council meeting moved on until the end of the meeting and the time of public comment.

One man got up to speak on behalf of the recall website and gave an explanation of the website and at one point it appeared he might be removed from the meeting by police.  The man refused to identify him self but had spoken previously at another council meeting and is car salesman Jeff Dahlberg.

Dahlberg tried to tell the council that Howard Burnette had nothing to do with the website crossvillerecall.org but at the bottom of that site's home page it states that the page is "copyright 2016 by Crossville Citizens for Good Government" The paperwork filed with the local election office shows that the only name on those filings lists Howard Burnette as the groups treasurer.  

Another notice indicates that artwork is copyrighted by Advantamax with a link to that businesse's website that says it is still under construction.  Checking sources, it appears that Advantamax was once registered as a corporation with the state of Tennessee at an address in Goodlestville but has been administratively dissolved since 2002 for failing to file paperwork.