Like many newspaper reporters, I served an apprenticeship covering meetings of municipal boards and panels. In the mid-1980s, I was a regular at city council meetings in Norman, Del City and Midwest City. One of the first things you learn is that there tends to be a cast of regulars who attend the meetings. Some of those regulars are fervent, even emotional, about the issues they hold dear.
The fear that those emotions can erupt in violence was acknowledged by the Oklahoma City Council in 1996, when the city spent $2,000 to conceal steel plates in the horseshoe desk the city council sits behind. The plates were designed to protect council members in case of an attack, noted a story by my colleague Jack Money.
The most extreme example will forever be Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton, who burst into Thursday’s meeting of the Kirkwood, Mo., city council and fatally gunned down five people. An Associated Press account notes that Thornton often was “a contentious presence” at council meetings.
More from the AP:
“He had twice been convicted of disorderly conduct for disrupting meetings in May 2006.
The weekly Webster-Kirkwood Times quoted (Mayor Mike) Swoboda as saying in June 2006 that Thornton’s contentious remarks over the years created ‘one of the most embarrassing situations that I have experienced in my many years of public service.’
The mayor’s comments came during a meeting attended by Thornton two weeks after he was forcibly removed from the chambers. Swoboda had said the council considered banning Thornton from future meetings but decided against it.
In a federal lawsuit stemming from his arrests during two meetings just weeks apart, Thornton insisted that Kirkwood officials violated his constitutional rights to free speech by barring him from speaking at the meetings.
But a judge in St. Louis tossed out the lawsuit Jan. 28, writing that ‘any restrictions on Thornton’s speech were reasonable, viewpoint neutral, and served important governmental interests.’
You can read Thornton’s complaint here (via USA Today’s On Deadline blog).
Balancing the public’s right to weigh in with a city panel’s duty to get its business done in a timely manner has long been a touchy point for those who hold the gavel at city council meetings. I don’t recall ever fearing for my safety during a council meeting, but there were some nights when I feared for my sanity as a “usual suspect” launched a lengthy diatribe into a public microphone.
I’ve seen city officials gavel down long-winded speeches or even ask police officers to escort uncooperative members of the public from council meetings. And some of those situations were tense. But I’m glad I never had to witness what reporter Janet McNichols saw and heard Thursday night.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer