SLO County supervisors prohibit using county equipment during public comment 

For members of the public attending the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors meetings, displaying video and audio presentations using county equipment during the public comment period is now a thing of the past.

The supervisors' 3-2 vote—with 1st District Supervisor John Peschong and 5th District Supervisor Debbie Arnold dissenting—stemmed from controversial opposition to them passing a resolution on July 9 that declared June as Pride Month. At that meeting, Arroyo Grande resident and former Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate Gaea Powell played a video of Tenet Media's coverage of San Francisco Pride, which showed naked people in public spaces.

click to enlarge

• File Photo By Jayson Mellom
• UPHOLDING RIGHTS First District Supervisor John Peschong was one of two votes against banning public commentors from using county equipment to display presentations, claiming it infringes on the rights of all those who have displayed information without being disruptive.

"The events of the July 9 meeting manifested a threat to the orderly conduct of our meetings and certainly manifested an offense to the community standards upon which this local government is sworn to serve," 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson said at the Aug. 13 meeting.

County Counsel Rita Neal said at the meeting that First Amendment law that governs freedom of speech is highly nuanced and ad hoc decisions are difficult to make. Obscene speech also isn't protected by the First Amendment.

"What's been happening around the state is that public meetings are getting more disruptive," Neal said. "There's an effort trying to balance people's right to speak and attend board meetings and participate, and also keep people safe and letting other people know you can't be disruptive in a public meeting."

The updated procedural rules approved by the supervisors also specify that each speaker's public comment is limited to three minutes per agenda item. They aren't allowed to yield any remaining time to other speakers or speak a second time on behalf of someone else on a single item. The rules now stress that personal, slanderous, and threatening attacks against an individual or that are not related to county business will not be tolerated. The board chair can order the removal of any disruptive people from the meeting. Gibson added that the key benefit to the restructured rules is that they are content and viewpoint neutral.

While Peschong called Powell's presentation pornographic material that should have been shut down, he said that he favored not changing the rules based on feedback from public commenters Mike Brown of the Coalition of Labor Agriculture and Business, San Miguel resident Darcia Stebbens, and Templeton resident Murray Powell.

"Each one of them ... has come to the podium and they've used the overhead projector, and they haven't shown any offensible, negative, nasty information on that overhead screen," Peschong said. "I don't want to cut out them and infringe on their First Amendment rights."

SLO County resident Holly Sletteland, who is associated with the Friends of Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, also objected to the ban on using county equipment for presentations. The rule doesn't apply to the appeals process for applicants and appellants.

"I have presented photographs at the meetings this way in the past and have greatly benefited from seeing photographs presented by others," Sletteland wrote in an Aug. 11 letter. "You know the old saying—a picture is worth a thousand words sometimes. Granted, this can be abused and obviously has been, but we'll lose a lot by not allowing it at all." Δ