The Cherokee school board has a similar prohibition on naming individuals, although it cites school policies and Robert’s Rules of Order as the legal basis for preventing speakers from mentioning employees by name.ĭo such policies violate the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech? If people cannot criticize government employees by name during meetings, does that mean they cannot praise an employee, either? It would not be a reasonable viewpoint-neutral position for a city council or school board to take if officials permitted praise but not criticism. That statement claims, inaccurately, that Iowa law prohibits discussing specific employees or their job performance. Last month, the school board president read a statement in which the school’s attorney suggested legal action could be taken against a Cherokee mother for calling school officials inept.Īnd in the Bettendorf school district, as in some other Iowa districts, the school board president reads a statement before the “public forum” portion of each meeting. Some local government officials in Iowa show signs of needing thicker skins, too, because they have tried to silence critics at meetings of city councils and school boards for making comments they did not like.Įarlier this month, Davenport Mayor Mike Matson threatened to adjourn any city council meeting if a member of the public makes comments that he or the city attorney believe are defamatory toward city employees or officials.Ĭontroversy has bubbled in Cherokee over plans to arm up to 40 school employees with guns. That led to a letter to the editor a few days later in the Register in which a reader observed that Waller should use some of his millions in book and movie royalties to buy himself a thicker skin. He yanked the notebook from her hand and flipped it aside. Between scribbling his signature for fans on copies of his novel, Waller answered questions from a Des Moines Register reporter.Īt one point, the persnickety Iowan became peeved by the nature of the reporter’s questions. Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at the time the famous movie “The Bridges of Madison County” premiered in 1995, author Robert James Waller was at a book-signing in West Des Moines.
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