Darien City Council passes law to crack down on public meeting disruption

Taylor Cooper, The Brunswick News, Ga.
·2 min read

Jan. 17—The Darien City Council voted to crack down on unruly citizens at public meetings, passing an ordinance just before Christmas that allows law enforcement to ticket disruptive citizens.

"It shall be unlawful to intentionally or substantially obstruct or interfere with a municipal meeting by physical action or verbal utterance," the text of the new law, passed unanimously on Dec. 21, reads.

The ordinance defines municipal meetings as those held by the "mayor and council, planning commission, downtown development authority or any other public body, authority or committee duly formed and a part of the municipal government of the city of Darien."

The ordinance is an attempt to be fair to all citizens, said city councilor Augustus Skeen, as some citizens were trying to use the public meetings as a campaign opportunity. Others followed their example in regards to other subjects, and it led to an untenable situation in which no public business could be conducted, he explained.

"It got a little out of hand," Skeen, also mayor pro tempore, said. "(Darien Mayor Hugh Hodge) wants to go back and do meetings like Robert's Rules of Order calls for. We called for order several times, and one of the unruly people nearly had to be restrained by one of our law enforcement officers.

"At that point, we had to do something."

There needs to be some kind of order for meetings to proceed, he said. While those who want to speak deserve an opportunity, it can't come at the expense of the council's ability to conduct business.

"We don't want it to get to that point. We're a small town, we're a great town with great people," Skeen said.

Some sections of state code can be interpreted as prohibiting misconduct in public meetings, said David Hudson, an Augusta attorney very familiar with the First Amendment and state open meetings law. Some have been found to pose constitutional problems.

Based on his experience, Hudson said Darien's ordinance could likely be challenged legally due to its vagueness and inadequate definition of what it is supposed to prohibit.

"It could have been done better by defining obstruct and interfere, and by putting in a requirement of a warning by the presiding officer," Hudson wrote.

Hudson represents The News in some matters as general counsel for the Georgia Press Association.