Did Citrus County Commissioners Violate the First Amendment?

At the May 27, 2025 County Commission meeting, the commissioners interrupted several speakers and told them they could not talk about a pending land use application. Did this restriction violate the First Amendment? Find out in the video below! As always, full transcript is provide for those who wish to read it rather than listen.

Short Summary:

The Supreme Court has ruled that government has the ability to restrict some speech. They can implement rules about speaking at a meeting. They can limit the amount of time at the podium. They can do various things to make sure meetings run smoothly, but they do not have unlimited power to restrict speech at government meetings.

In Ward v Rock Against Racism (1989), the Supreme Court determined that in order for restrictions to survive a First Amendment challenge, the restrictions would need to satisfy a three prong test.

1) The regulation must be Content Neutral
2) The regulation must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest
3) The regulation must leave open ample alternative channels for communicating

Several cases address these concerns.

Police Department of City of Chicago v Mosley (1972) addresses the content based restrictions. In that case, the court ruled that the city could not implement a ban on all picketing in front of a school except for picketing regarding school labor issues. The court found that doing so was creating a regulation that was not Content Neutral.

Reed v Town of Gilbert (2015) was another case that addressed Content based regulation and found that a law the town has passed with restrictions on signs was unconstitutional because it looked at the content of the signs.

For Citrus County, there is a county ordinance that governs commission meetings. That ordinance says that people can talk about any topic under the jurisdiction of the board. Stopping people from speaking about a land use case is stopping people from speaking based on the content of their speech. That would violate the First Amendment under the Reed and Mosley cases.

Full Transcript
** references several videos that are shown in the video above **

Hey everybody Curtiss Bryant here. Today we're going to talk about a potential First Amendment violation that we saw at the recent county commission meeting on May 27th 2025. For those of you guys that didn't watch the meeting or aren't familiar with what happened basically a bunch of citizens got up to the board and they wanted to express their opinions on an upcoming land use application that will be before the board in August. The commissioners cut them off each time they started referencing this particular application using the quasi judicial rules and stating that they weren't allowed to talk about that particular project.

They were cutting off the speech of the people based on that situation. So this video we're going to dive into the first amendment implications of this. We're going to talk about some case law. We're going to do a lot of geeking out on Supreme Court cases and whatnot. Let's jump into it!

Basically this first video that we're going to show you guys here are the rules that they set up for this meeting. Commissioner Bae is going to make a announcement to the to the people there that they aren't allowed to talk about a certain case because of the quasi judicial rules.

*Video with Commissioner Bays Speaking*

"So as a matter of housekeeping and I know there's we want to hear from everybody but just to let you know later today when we talk about the sand mine application that is a quasi judicial. We want to hear from everyone but we cannot have specifics to that application that is pending. If you want to come up and talk about maybe amendments to the mining ordinance, that's what we would call a legislative decision, but anything that has to do with the application itself is a quasi judicial and we cannot talk about that at this time. That will be heard before the master a special master and then it will be heard by the BOCC but it is something that we cannot deep go into and talk about um the ordinance today."

All right so there you have it. They're setting the ground rules saying that the people there cannot talk about that particular pending application because there's quasi judicial rules. The next several videos are going to be feedback or back and forth with the county commissioners, cutting off different citizens as they're speaking.

Video of Citizen 1 speaking

Citizen: "truck that sand from across Norvell Bryant

Commissioner Bays: "We can't talk about the application and because it is quasi judicial. okay. If you want to just be generalized about it that's fine but we can't talk about the specifics."

Citizen: "sand mining should not be allowed in every single land use district within five miles. that okay? That's already been said. There are health risks from a sand mine. Is that okay? Silicosis is a chronic lung disease. It can be fata.l There are schools and homes near this mine. Lots of children will be affected by a sand mine. There's three schools and many homes are on the Crystal River side of this mine. If you look on a map the high school is 4.4 miles"

Bays: "Again be very generalized not specifics."

Citizen: "Crystal River Middle School is 4.7 miles and primary school is four miles. That is driving.Iif you look at a map where"

Bays: "We don't want to talk. We don't talk map. We don't talk addresses okay. I don't want to talk about anything that's would be germane to the application okay."

Citizen: "Okay so I am asking for a no vote on the land change. Is that okay? From agriculture"

Bays: "We're asking you. I mean just it it has to be very generic. This is if it would be just like a trial that's going to go before a judge a quasi judicial. We can't have any information that would be germane to the application itself because it we're not supposed to have any preconceived ideas before we hear the the application. It's just no different than if you were standing before a judge and you had a trial. They wouldn't let the jurors have that information."

Citizen: "So can I talk environmental impacts. It will affect our aquifer. Lower our property values. Whatever um okay so we are called I'm just going to finish it then because there's all stuff in here I can't even talk about. We are called the nature coast. Let's try to keep it that way. We're moving away from this nature coast and no one is stopping it or try to help it. Our county is beautiful and do you know who I miss i miss Gary Maidoff. He would not let this happen thank you very much"

Okay, so we heard in that exchange, Commissioner Bae disrupted her several times to make sure that she wasn't talking about that pending land use application regarding that sand mine

*Commissioner Davis Speaks*

"Madam Chair. I might be able to help just a little bit. I don't know. It's It's always harder to sit in the center seat and you hear things when you're over here. We already shot down the FDOT request today so that's off the table we are taking no votes today on anything to do with sand mining whatsoever. We will take a vote in the future and you can come back and talk about that at that future at that future hearing and for the person who shouted out then why are we even here if we're not allowed to talk one of our primary roles as your commissioners is to protect the taxpayer dollar. If we get into silly litigation okay that costs all of us a lot of money. We are not trying to be mean or shut public comment down we're just trying to be really careful with your tax dollars so cut us a break okay thank you Madam Chair "

Okay all right so two things to note of that. Number one. She referenced that they aren't taking a vote today on that particular matter and to come back later on at a different meeting to talk about it when they take that vote. That's going to be important here in a second when we talk about the rules that the county commission places on public comment.

Number two. She mentioned is the avoiding a lawsuit they're afraid that if they talk about the case. It's going to be prejudicial to the case and they're afraid that it's going to give the the applicant, if they lose this case, the ability to sue the county to have a new case heard before somebody different at a court. So they're afraid of a lawsuit. That's why they don't want you guys talking about that particular case.

*Citizen 2 Speaking*

Citizen: "I have looked at the development plans they're beautiful great plans. Well laid out. I'm not sure it's the right time at the right place"

County Attorney: "Commissioner"

Commissioner Bays: "I'm sorry. That's another application that's pending before you, so we shouldn't be talking about it, okay."

All right. That gentleman was talking about a different application that's going to be coming before them as well that's also pending and the county attorney stopped them because they said they weren't supposed to be talking about that case as well.

*Citizen 3 Speaking*

Citizen: "With this proposed sand mine being right next"

Commissioner Bays: "ma'am we cannot discuss the application. This this is strictly just you can we can't say we approve or disapprove No, that is that will go before the special master. Then it will come to the BOCC."

Citizen: "So we can't can we say anything about all the noise in it"

Commissioner Bays: "You can talk about sand mines in general but you cannot talk about the application specific"

Citizen: "Sand mines in general brings"

So again somebody else was interrupted as they were speaking again citing the quasi judicial procedures for different hearings for the land use hearing so that they could stop the speech from happening

*Citizen 4 Speaking*

Citizen:  " The reason why I'm before you today is I would just like you to please consider the following. Before any decisions are made, if we're going to go"

Commissioner Bays: "We cannot talk about this application. I'm sorry I know I sound like a broken record. no no just think of it as if you there was a jury trial you would not want your jury to have information prior to hearing the information at the trial.

Citizen 4: "As many I understand as just stop I realize the project is important but as an, abutting property owner, I ask that you reconsider that"

County Attorney: "Madam chair we have got to"

Citizen 4: "it's perhaps the FDOT would acquire my property"

Commissioner Bays: "ma'am can we have got to stop talking about this.

Citizen 4: "okay I understand I understand um thank you I really do thank you for your consideration and I entrust"

Okay so she was cut off a couple different times for talking about that same application. Now these next couple videos are going to be commissioners talking about why they aren't able to hear conversation about these particular topics and gives you guys reasons that they're trying to avoid that conversation and restricting the speech of the citizens at these meetings.

*Commissioner Davis Speaking*

"I appreciate everyone taking a lot of time out of their day to come join us to have this wonderful time about the thing we can't talk about. Please understand that we are trying to protect you and the rest of the citizens in the county by saying that we can't talk about it. I also understand that folks that they get energized about something but they've never interacted with us before so they have no idea how to do it. I get it right. So here's what you do. You write an email to all. You can address it to all five of us. We will not respond. At best if one of us is feeling like they have extra time in their schedule they may say thank you your input's been received. Okay. But that's it because we cannot respond. But all of those emails will go into the public record and they will be forwarded to the special master, according to our attorney.

We want to hear from you we do but we have to protect this because we we're trying to protect what you want. Okay. While also being fair. Sometimes we approve things. Sometimes we don't. Speaking in very general terms and so we have to go into the these quasi judicial hearings with an open mind and hear the evidence as presented that evening. Period full stop. Some of that evidence has been collected over several months time with y'all emailing and so forth. Okay. So that's how in general how government works."

All right so a couple things to note there. Number one. Again she's referencing trying to avoid lawsuits and things of that nature in these decisions and why they're not allowing people to speak.

But more importantly, number two, she points out that we are able to email them our concerns regarding different applications and those get added to the file for the case that they can hear at a later point in time and then consider those emails and things as evidence. We're going to dive into what that means and why that's allowed and not allowed or whatever their opinion of that is, but I wanted to make that distinction there, that they are encouraging you guys to send emails to the commissioners for these cases.

*Commissioner Finegan Speaking*

Comissioner Finegan: "I do want to thank you all for coming out. It's so frustrating when you can't say what you want to say. I think it was less about we're not allowed to hear it because you can email, but when you do it in a public forum the other side's not here to defend themselves and then it gets really sticky. I try to email back everybody that I can. Obviously when I just got home last night there was so many you know. And usually it's you know thank you for sharing the information or thanks for sharing your opinion. I truly do as everyone want to hear from you. As it was said in the past you know we can't we can't form an opinion. We can't respond you know really in depth back, but it's important to hear from the community. So for you guys to sit here just shy of four hours or excuse me three hours, that's important to us. I know how valuable your time is and I'm sure you could be enjoying this day with a lot of more beautiful things outside in this beautiful county but you're here with us and it's it's noted and appreciated thank you."

All right, so again she references the email possibilities and that they will read the emails and view those opinions later on once you get those sent.

Now this next video that we're going to show you guys is a little bit long. It's about six minutes but it's a all-encompassing video of the different commissioner feedback at a separate meeting. This was the one that was last week when a citizen got up and raised the concerns about them limiting the speech from this particular meeting. So this is their reply to that person and then they talk to the county attorney and the county attorney gives the reasoning of why they feel that they can limit that speech at those meetings.

*Commissioner Feedback June 23, 2025*

Commissioner Davis: "Please remember that the more that we quote unquote break quasi judicial which is we would have to then disclose ex-parte to be legal. We have to give a fair shot to both the applicant and to the citizens. If we screw that up, we can be sued by the applicant and then we all end up paying any judgment and it still goes through so we it's a lose-lose lose lose-lose situation for citizens. So personally I am up here to protect your interest and I believe the same is is true of all four of my colleagues. So if I've ever given offense I apologize.

Commissioner Bays: and I'll follow up on it the laughter. I was smiling and trying to make light of the situation because people kept coming and talking about something that could potentially we were only allowed to take input during the the quasi judicial. And when they were trying to make come up and make comments we kept having to stop them because we're taking comments out of order from when we would have a quasi judicial. And then we can't use any of the testimony that they're using at that time during that meeting and open to the public at the hearing itself. So it was only saying that we kept having people come and it was saying I'm sorry you're you you keep bringing up a quasi judicial issue but we can't take input.

And I'm sorry you've already spoke to open to the public so I can't engage in a dialogue but I would be happy at beyond this meeting to talk to you about it. I was not laughing at the people. It was the circumstances in which we were going through and trying to explain. It is complicated. It's no different than having like a jury trial. So if you were having a jury trial the judges are not allowed to talk with people to try to get information about what's going to happen at the trial. That's really the gist of what was going on and it so meant no disrespect. It was just all in interest of trying to get people to understand why we should not be hearing information on something that would become be come before this board in a quasi judicial matter. So if you'd like to leave, if I can get somebody maybe Veronica. If you can get his name and phone number and then we can talk about it later."

Commissioner Finnegan: " because a lot of people watch and they couldn't see for the first speaker he walked out with our expert. So I wanted people to know that we the county is obviously on top of that and is concerned and taking care of any water issues.

For the second speaker that Veronica is taking out of the room. Before you take him Veronica, one second please. If I may madam attorney because it is I think confusing to people. Because I guess now, like, I understand, but I see the point of the public. They can email us because it's public record and this is a publicly notified meeting where people are allowed to speak about anything. That does make me and probably all these people give pause. Can you can you explain that?Because, I guess, I could, not being the attorney, argue it both ways. I can see the way that we're the judges and the other person was not here to defend themselves. So we couldn't have the hearing and that makes perfect sense. I think to all of us but to the public. They understand that they can't talk to us, you know out of the schoolhouse if you will, but this is a public meeting where everyone knows that anyone can speak about anything. Can you can you help them? Can you get us through this?"

County Attorney: "Well I think one of the things the gentleman quoted was the statute that provides that citizens must be allowed an opportunity to have public input before the commission votes on a matter. That is true and that is the statute. However, with regard to quasi judicial hearings. Those occur after they've been noticed and everyone has an opportunity to provide evidence. The key missing link if you will with what happened with the hearing that everyone or the the meeting that everyone's talking about is the South Worth Mine application had not been noticed for that meeting. So while there was an issue of sand for the parkway that was noticed for that meeting the Southworth mine application was not noticed and so I think that's where the confusion occurred to the public.

They they believed they could talk about sand for the parkway which they could have of course because that was the agenda item but it was the the specific pending application that wasn't noticed that they kept trying to talk about. And when things are quasi judicial in nature the courts have said that any communications that occur outside of the actual hearing that is noticed for that matter are considered prejud they are presumed to be prejudicial to that application. So the board has to be careful not to take testimony or take evidence outside of that hearing. Because whatever your decision is to approve the application or deny the application, that decision could be challenged and you could lose in court if you consider things outside of the hearing. Unfortunately that's case law that dates back many many years and it has to do with the issues of due process."

Commissioner Finegan: "I think you explained that very well i hope that people listening and have the same concerns have a better understanding thank you."

Okay so important exchanges there. Again they reference the potential for lawsuits and avoiding lawsuits for the county is one of the reasons why they're not allowing people to talk about those things. They also mentioned, the county attorney in particular, mentioned that because this was not an agenda item that the people could not talk about that particular thing because it wasn't on the agenda.

Now let's dive into the county rules and state rules regarding county commission meetings and public forums and all of those things. We'll dive into some of the supreme court issues regarding the first amendment and why this particular meeting could have been a violation of the first amendment.

All right, so number one, we're going to start with is the Florida statutes regarding public meetings and the reasonable opportunity to be heard. So a couple things in this. They do admit that or the state law does say that there are some limitations that the commissioners can put onto their meetings.

We'll talk about those in a second but basically "members of the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on a proposition before a board or commission. This opportunity to be heard need not occur at the same meeting in which the board or commission takes official action on the proposition if it is the opportunity occurs at a meeting that is during the decision-making process and is within a reasonable proximity time before the board meeting."

So basically the state law says that the people have an opportunity to be heard. It the opportunity to be heard doesn't have to happen at that particular meeting where the item is discussed. That can be in the decision-making process, so we can argue that the decision-making process for this is any period of time before the meeting takes place and during the meeting is an opportunity to be heard based on state law.

Now we talked about those restrictions. The restrictions on this and these are all done and upheld by the Supreme Courts and different courts throughout the country.

Rules and policies of board commissions which govern the opportunity to be heard are those that are limited to. This allows them to put time limits on speeches. The county has a three minute speech time limit per person or 5 minutes for companies and businesses. Then letter B is saying that they're allowed to put limits on the group, so if there's a huge case that comes before them or a bunch of people are there talking about a specific thing, they can limit that down to a handful of people all tied in together.

They can ask for forms. They can ask for your names. They can ask if you're opposed or against a certain thing. They can ask all that information here on this third thing and then number four is they can designate a specific time for public comment. So at our meetings they designate the the beginning of the meeting before the official things happen after the time certain items and then at the end of the meeting, are your two public comment sections.

We're going to talk about Citrus County. So Citrus County has taken the state law and they've created their own laws and ordinances regarding public meetings. In this ordinance it says that here

"in order to provide the general public an opportunity to address the board of county commissioners and in compliance with Florida law, members of the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to address the board on any concern under the jurisdiction of the board and on any proposition prior to the board taking official action on such proposition to ensure a full and fair opportunity for all citizens to be heard the following rule shall apply to all legislative quasi legislative quasi judicial matters unless formal quasi judicial procedures are instituted"

So important here is that the county has put an ordinance in place that allows people to address the board not only on things that are taking place at the board. So we heard the county attorney say that that particular item wasn't on the agenda so therefore that person wasn't able to talk about that item. We are able to talk about items that are on the agenda but more importantly we can talk about any items that are under the jurisdiction of the board based on the ordinance that the county has. So a hearing of land use is a jurisdiction of the board, so therefore people are allowed to talk about those comments.

Now they said unless formal quasi judicial procedures are instituted. We'll talk a little bit about that. I'll do a whole separate video on quasi judicial. What that means and how it all works but we'll briefly touch on that here.

This is just saying that public comments can be part of the main motions. All of those things that we talked about, "public comment should be directed to the chairperson". So these are different rules that the county put in place for open to the public . "Each person gets three minutes. Individuals representing organization get five minutes." So it's the rules that are in place that allow people to talk at the meetings. Persons speaking during the public hearings and workshops are only limited to speak during the time period in which public comment. This means that they can only speak during public comment portion or if there's a vote taking place and it opens up to the public. Unless there's an emergency situation or it's an a meeting that's exempt from those rules. Then you have to have certain civility and decorum should be in place for the meeting. So they can limit you know obscenities and things like that and disruptions to the meeting.

From there so we're touch briefly on quasi judicial. We heard that come up several times during this that they couldn't talk about certain things because of the quasi judicial nature of this hearing.

So basically quasi judicial is a set of rules, it's basically a hearing in itself. So you think of like a court hearing. You hear that often when they talk about this, it's basically like a court. So the applicant submits their evidence basically of why this project should be approved or this land use thing should be approved or whatever it is that they want to do. The staff and the county then present their side of it saying that these are the things that they follow. These are things they don't follow. Different things with comprehensive plan and all of that.

Then the commissioners act as the judges. So they take the evidence from both sides. They take some evidence and testimony from the public and all of that. Then they decide whether the case gets approved or denied based on that evidence.

So a couple things. Here we're going to point out. We keep hearing ex-parte communication come up so I wanted to show you guys what ex-parte communication is. By definition "ex-parte communication shall mean oral written electronic or graphical in communication with the decision maker which may directly or indirectly relate to or which could influence the disposition of the matter other than those made during the record of the quasi judicial hearing" So basically ex-parte communication is any communication that is received by the commissioners or the PDC members or the special master, if there's a special master. It could be written, oral, electronic, graphic information. Site visits could be considered ex-parte communication. But basically any communication they get outside of the meeting itself, the hearing itself, is considered ex-parte communication.

We talk about relevant evidence. Relevant evidence means that "which tends to prove or disprove facts that is material to the board's determination". So we hear them talk about evidence that they receive participants these are members of the public and again the same rules apply to a quasi judicial hearing. That the members get three minutes and the speakers representing groups of people get five minutes.

This is saying that all evidence should be submitted 14 days prior to the scheduled hearing. This allows both sides to be able to review the evidence of the case, to make their presentation and all of that.

Then this is the how the board decides it. That the board should publicly deliberate the matter. Important part here is "although the board should not be required to make findings of fact and conclusions of law the board must ensure that there is competent substantial evidence on the record to support this decision". So we heard them say that email is evidence, in those meetings, that when they were cutting people off they encourage you guys to email be like "Hey email us that's considered evidence we can put it into the case record and we can talk about that there."

Courts have been very clear that opinion is not competent and substantial evidence . It's just that it's just opinion. So if you say "Hey I don't like this case because of property values,". That's an opinion there's. No proof there for that. Now if you brought a record from a certified property appraiser and said "Hey this property appraiser said that my value is going to go down if XYZ project is added next to my land", then that would become evidence that they can use. It's more than just opinion.

Important number two is popularity is not competent substantial evidence so we can get a bunch of people in t-shirts show up at a meeting. That is not proof of anything. That's not evidence. It's just showing a bunch of people support this particular project. So opinions are not enough if they do not rise to level of competent substantial evidence. It doesn't matter if the room is full of people offering their views if their views do not rise to level of competent substantial evidence or testimony. They should have no effect on the decision.

That is saying that all those people that were at that meeting that were silenced, most of them were just opinions. They didn't like the particular project. They didn't like where it was located... whatever... Those are opinions and then the commissioners cannot even consider that as part of the case. So hearing that communication to them shouldn't matter. Shouldn't have any weights on the case because again it's opinion and that's not substantial competent evidence. But again it is ex-parte communication. But the same point there is that email is considered ex-parte communication as well and they were encouraging people to email. So why is email okay but not having a conversation at at a public meeting.

We heard them mention the court cases. Jennings case. This is 1991. Basically this case talked about ex-parte communication. Somebody on the applicant side called one of the county commissioners. One of the people that lost heard about that. They complained that they had that ex-parte communication and then the courts ruled that the ex-parte communication is considered prejudicial.

"So the issue that they confront is the effect of ex-parte communication upon a decision emanating from a quasi judicial proceeding of the Dade County Commission. We hold that upon proof that quasi judicial officer received an ex-parte contact. A presumption arises that the contact was prejudicial."

So basically saying there that any ex-parte communication is prejudicial to that case going further. "The occurrence of this ex-parte communication in a quasi judicial proceeding does not mandate an automatic reversal and upon the aggrieved party's proof that an ex-parte contact occurred. Its effect is presumed to be prejudicial unless the defendant proves contrary by competent evidence."

So basically here saying that just because it's a prejudiced thing with ex-parte communication doesn't necessarily mean that it automatically mandates a reversal of the case. So let's say that the case was denied it doesn't mean that they get a new case because there was ex-parte communication even though that was presumed prejudicial. The person can challenge it and then the defendant which in would be the county or whichever party is the defendant, they are most likely the county because they're the ones that denied it. More than likely they're never going to push back. If the project's approved the county is not going to sue to have that project stopped. So the applicant in most casess is going to be the aggrieved party. So if they say that there's an ex-parte communication that came into effect, the county has to prove that that was irrelevant to the decision-making process by showing that there's proof for their decision.

So all these people getting up and giving their opinion, and again we talked about opinion is not proof, all those people giving their opinion about the project, if the project is denied and the applicant says "Hey these all these people at Ex-parte Communication it's prejudicial." The county can come back and say "Yes it might be prejudicial ex-parte communication." However we didn't include their opinions in our evidence because we didn't consider that because opinions are not evidence. Opinions aren't competent evidence so therefore they ignored those opinions and made the decision based on competent evidence and they can prove that in court by saying. "hey this is the land use we used. This is what the comp plan says. This is what all the the LDC says" and all those things.

So more importantly we talked about that the county commissioner said that because it's ex-parte because it's a quasi judicial proceeding that means they can't have any discussions period on those things. However state law here says that the county can institute an ordinance basically saying that ex-parte communication is not prejudicial. So the state law gives the counties the ability to remove the prejudice from the ex-parte communication by implementing an ordinance that says that such thing.

But more importantly is "any person not otherwise prohibited by statute, charter provision or ordinance may discuss with any public official the merits of any matter on which action may be taken at any board or commission on which the to the local public official is a member." Therefore saying that any single person is allowed to have the communications, the different things that they're allowed to do and it says that if they pass an ordinance they can remove the presumed prejudice of that action. Importantly here the county has the ability to resolve the presumed prejudice of an ex-parte communication by simply passing an ordinance that removes the prejudice from the ex-parte communication.

We'll dive into this when we talk about quasi judicial hearings things of that nature. Basically the commissioners decided not to do this option a couple weeks ago because it opened up a can of worms because now they have to take meetings with everybody if they listen to certain people. So imagine for instance a developer comes to them. "Hey we have a project we want to do this is pending before the board. Let's have a discussion." The county commissioners have that discussio. They disclose it to the public, which the law would require disclosure of any communications. So now the citizens want to have a meeting but the county commissioner is too busy. So now the citizens input gets put out because they're too busy. So that's one of the issues

Issue number two with this is that the ordinance would also require them to submit to the file like they do with the emails any ex-parte communication that they had. So let's imagine for instance they're in the grocery store. I walk up to one of the commissioners. "hey commissioner there's this project pending this is what I feel about it blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." They can't stop that conversation because of the ordinance that's put in place now. They have to disclose that conversation to the public in the public files of this and so they disclose it to their case. The purpose for that is they want the applicants, they want the other people that are involved in the case to have full evidence before them. So if they reference that communication in the evidence, they have to also reference what the conversation was about. The detail of the conversation. When the conversation took place. What we talked about. The details of what we talked about and what they said if anything about that.

They have to do that for every single ex-parte communication. So imagine now all the emails that come in. All the text messages. All of the phone calls. All those things. They have to make a record of all those things and if they happen to miss something and the other the applicant finds out hey they missed this ex-parte communication, there's now grounds there. So the board is hesitant to put this ordinance that would remove the presumption of prejudice because of the extra work and all of that that's involved for that.

Going forward so let's talk about the first amendment portions of this because this is the most important aspect of what we're going to talk about today. And why limiting the speech, even though it's ex-parte communication. Even though it's a quasi judicial hearing. Why limiting speech by the public at the county commission meeting is a potential violation of the first amendment. All this stuff is from Georgetown law. I just copy and paste a lot of different things. I'm highlight some of the things that are important to hear about here.

"Question is can governments limit the topics to be discussed at public meetings?"

"Yes in a limited public forum the government may restrict discussion to specific topics so long as the limitation is reasonable and viewpoint neutral"

We all know that there's different ways that governments are allowed to limit speech. The first amendment doesn't give you unlimited speech anywhere you want to go. The courts have ruled that there's limited public forums things of that nature. We'll dive into that in a second, but basically the government is allowed to limit some of the things that you guys can talk about at meetings.

So for instance, if the county commissioners want to say "the only thing that you can talk about at a meeting is anything that's on the agenda". If they want to remove the "anything that's under the jurisdiction of the board", which is what the county ordinance says, they can remove that. They can make it only on things that are on the agenda and that would be legal to do so. Now they're saying that you can talk about those particular things, so they are able to limit some speech for that.

What other constitutional limits on speakers at public meetings? In addition to limiting comments to particular topics, government officials in charge of public meetings, "may impose reasonable content neutral time place and manner restrictions on the participant speech so long as the restrictions are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest and leave open ample alternative channels for communication".

So this means that as long as it's limited in nature. As long as it's content neutral and doesn't have a specific content that's banning and as long as it leaves open ample opportunity for alternative channels of communication, they can limit speech at meetings.

"The government needs to provide only a reasonable opportunity for speakers to reach their intended audience not necessarily the speaker's preferred or most effective means of communication um an option for submitting written comments to the record".

So for instance in this particular case at the BOCC they could say that they are giving people ample opportunity. Just because they're not allowing you guys to speak at the open to the public portion of it, they also allow you the opportunity to email those comments to them. So that potentially provides them an reasonable opportunity to speak on that issue.

Some other things that the courts have ruled that they are allowed to do. Time limits. Talked about that registration. They can ask you guys to register to speak. Restrictions on loud and disruptive speech. So things like yelling in the back of the room we heard them stop that a couple times. Clapping. Things of that nature are rules that they can implement that don't violate the First Amendment.

We're going to talk about a couple court cases here. These are important because these are what determines things like time place and manner and different ways that the governments are able to restrict speech in certain circumstances.

The first case we're going to talk about is Ward versus Rock Against Racism. This is going to be time place and manner. Basically definition is the government regulations that focus on how when and where speech occurs. Not the content of speech itself. The purpose is to balance free speech rights within other legitimate government interests such as maintaining public order, protecting the public safety and preserving access to public spaces.

So the case of Ward is that basically this company wanted to have a rock concert in New York City. They had the rock concert. It was loud. The city felt it was disruptive, things of that nature. So the city put an ordinance in place that the only way that you can have a concert using their band shell in Central Park is to use the city's own audio people. So you can't bring in your own audio staff. You have to use whatever is available to the city.

So the concert people sued sued the city saying that it was a violation of the first amendment because now the city is controlling the volume and all those things. The courts decided that the requirements for time place and manner regulations in a public forum are that that they "must be content neutral, narrowly tailored and serve a significant government interest and provide alternative channels for communicating".

The statute, noise control, has no connection to content so the regulations are content neutral and the government has a significant interest in controlling noise pollution. "The regulation is narrowly tailored to this interest, which could not have been achieved otherwise. There was not a substantial burden here since the concert still could continue with adequate equipment and the restriction was content neutral. It was justifiable for the city to prevent the sound from interfering with people in quieter surrounding areas."

Basically the court ruled that because this law, that they put in place, to restrict only the band shell at Central Park and from companies using their own people, is that it applied to everybody. Any concert. Any type of music. Everyone that wanted to use that band shell in Central Park had to go through the same rules. So it wasn't restricting it based on the content of the concert. It wasn't because it was a rock concert that this was getting banned or this law was enacted. It was because of the noise and they wanted to you know people in Central Park didn't necessarily want to be disrupted by the noise. So the court found that this was a justifiable law to restrict the first amendment there.

So in this case, more importantly, is they came up with three different ways in which are basically steps that the courts have to take to determine whether a law is constitutional under their first amendment. Number one has to be content neutral. Number two has to be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest and number three there has to be alternative methods for the person to provide their speech.

"So the city's principal justification the desire to control noise in order to retain the city the character of sheep meadow and other areas of the park and to avoid intrusion into residential areas, has nothing to do with content." So the court ruled that it was content neutral.

"The guideline was narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest. The city has a substantial interest interest in protecting citizens from unwelcome excessive noise even in a traditional public forum such as the park cannot be doubted." So the court was ruling that there was significant government interest there which is why they allowed this to continue.

"The guideline leaves open ample alternative channels of communication since it does not attempt to ban any particular manner or type of expression at a given place in time." So again, it satisfies those they allowed this to continue and the guideline leaves open ample alternative channels of communication since it does not attempt to ban any particular manner or type of expression at a given place in time. So again um it satisfies those three rules for this.

We're going to talk about content neutral and content based laws. The Reed versus Town of Gilbert. This is 2015 case. They dive into content based and content neutral laws here and how it applies to the first amendment.

Basically what happens here is that the Gilbert Arizona prohibits the display of outdoor signs without a permit but exempts 23 different categories. It talks about ideological signs, political signs. There's different rules for different types of signs.

"Temporary directional signs directing the public to a church or other qualifying events are limited to six square feet and may be displayed no more than 12 hours before and 1 hour after the qualifying event'".

Basically they can put it up 12 hours before the event but they have to take the signs down 1 hour after the event. This particular church sued the city. The church held services at various temporary locations it posted signs early Saturday to bearing its name and the time and location of the next service and did not remove the signs until midday Sunday. It was cited for exceeding the time limits and failing to include the event date. So the city fined them because they left the signs out too long be beyond the ordinance.

Important here the Supreme Court ruled it defines categories of temporary political ideological signs on the basis of their messages and the subjects that each category is based of different restrictions.

"A law that is content based on its face is subject to strict scrutiny regardless of benign motive, content neutral justification, or lack of aminus towards the ideas contained."

"More importantly while the law does not single out any particular viewpoint the first amendment hostility to content based regulation extends to prohibit banning of public discussion of entire topics."

The law signals out specific subject matter even if it does not target viewpoints within that subject matter. The court ruled that because it was content based regulation, they're specifically determining what signs can be placed, when they can be placed, based on the message of the signs, they ruled that that was content based regulation and a violation of the First Amendment.

"because content based laws target speech based on its communicative content, they are presumptively unconstitutional and may be justified only if the government proves that they are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest"

So again anything that's content based is presumed unconstitutional in Edison County of New York versus public servants common, the first amendment's hostility to content based regulation also extends to the prohibition of public discussion on entire topics. So again they're saying that it violates First Amendment if they ban discussion on an entire topic.

How does this apply to Citrus County? Citrus County is allowing speech of anything under their jurisdiction. You can get up there and talk about milliage rates. You can get up there and talk about sales tax. You can get up there and talk about different things that the county is able to control, but they are banning the speech on quasi judicial hearings. They're banning the speech on content that would come before the board at a separate time saying that you can't talk about it for the quasi judicial proceeding. So they're banning content based speech because the only reason to ban it is because of the content that's involved in that speech.

"the town cannot claim that placing strict limits on temporary directional signs is necessary to beautify the town when other types of signs create the same problem nor is it shown that temporary directional signs pose a greater threat to public safety than ideological or political signs"

So they're saying that all signs serve the same purpose for the most part. If the rule is that you want to get rid of directional signs because it you know doesn't beautify the area, then all other signs would create the same problems. So same thing here. Iif they want to ban the speech for quasi judicial proceedings or things that are pending before the board at a quasi judicial hearing. They want to ban that particular speech, but they're allowing all other speeches that are under the jurisdiction, again that's content based restriction.

So second content based restriction that came up is the Police Department of City of Chicago versus Mosley. This is 1972.

"Errol Mosley, a federal postal employee demonstrated peacefully on the sidewalk next to Jones Commercial High School in Chicago for 7 months. Later the city issued an ordinance that amended its long-standing rule against picketing next to a school. The new ordinance created an exception for peaceful labor picketing similar to Mosley's behavior."

He argued that this ordinance violated the First Amendment because it was content based. The court ruled the picketing may not be permitted or prohibited based only on its subject matter. Time, place and manner restrictions are the only permissible steps that a government can take to regular speech in public forum. Basically this guy was picketing, he was standing in front of a school protesting whatever it was that he was protesting. The city passed an ordinance that said that you can't protest outside the school unless you're protesting for peaceful labor or or labor issues. So if there's a labor issue, you know teacher strike or something like that, you can you can picket outside of the school for that reason but nothing else. He was getting kicked out basically for protesting something and then the city is saying that you can't do that unless it's for this particular reason. But the courts ruled that you can't exempt the type of picketing, the type of protest, in that area area because that is now content based restriction.

So again they're taking the content of the protest. They're allowing protests for labor purposes but not for anything else. That's the in the courts of view content based restriction.

He was suing under 14th and equal protection of the law in violation of the first and 14th amendments. He said the city of Chicago exempts peaceful labor picketing from its general prohibition on picketing in front of a school.

"The question we consider here is whether the selective exclusion from place is permitted our answer is no."

So again they chose the place in this particular moment of in front of the school. They're banning the speech in front of the school. The court ruled that that selective exclusion is not permitted because Chicago treats some picketing differently from others.

"We analyze this ordinance in terms of equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. Of course the equal protection claim in this case is closely intertwined with the first amendment interest. The Chicago ordinance affects picketing which is expressive conduct. Moreover it does does so by classifications formulated in terms of subject of picketing."

So again they're talking about the subject based rules and it's a violation of the first amendment because of the subject of the picketing.

"The central problem with Chicago's ordinance is that it describes permissible picking in terms of its subject matter. It allows some but doesn't allow others. But above all else, the first amendment means that the government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content."

So again the county allows people to talk about whatever is under the jurisdiction of the board, but it bans the particular speech on quasi judicial hearings from the from the message. It's banning it based on the subject matter and it's banning it based on the contents, which would be a violation of the first amendment.

"a law can be content based on its face and due to a discrimitory purpose or
justification a facially content based law draws distinctions based on a message it speaker conveys such a law might define regulated speech by particular subject matter or by its function and purpose by comparison a law that is content neutral on its face can still be determined content based if the law cannot be justified without reference to its content of the regulated speech"

So if they were to look at the content of the speech, are they able to or they remove the content of the speech, are they able to ban that speech? In this particular case if we remove the content of the quasi judicial proceedings in the pending land application. There's no justification to ban the speech because it's only based on the content of the speech that they're banning it. So again first violation of the first amendment and then this is the what the Congress so congress.gov here the congress website says about those particular cases.

So again it has to be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest. This is the second prong of those three prongs in which the government the courts would rule on first amendment violation.

For example the school district says that its students may not engage in any political speech at all during the entire school day whether in or out of classes because it's worried about distractions in the classroom is probably guilty of an over broad restriction that would not be sustained in courts. The goal of a good education may be of significant government interest but there's less restrictive ways to achieve that goal. The school might be able to require that students not talk while in certain types of classes that have nothing to do with politics, for example, while leaving them free to discuss their views throughout the rest of the day.

So basically courts have ruled various things that are considered significant government interest which you know. Imposing limits on noised levels of speech. That's a significant interest. We saw that with that Ward case with the concerts. Capping the number of protesters who may occupy a given forum. This could be public safety. This can be things of that nature that protect these citizens. Barring early morning or late evening demonstrations. This means that they can ban you know from midnight on that they can't have protests and things of that nature because it affects other people in the area. Restricting the size placement the signs on government property. Some of those things are considered substantial government interests, so long as the regulation promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved by less effectively absent regulation.

"The narrow tailing requirement will certainly be violated by categorical ban on any of the foregoing methods of expressive content"

"So for example, an ordinance would violate the narrow tailoring requirement by banning parades anywhere within a city's central business district on all work days because it would allow parades only when the downtown streets were bereft of onlookers"

So again there's ways in which the government is able to restrict it, but has to show substantial government interest in those things.

Another case the, Pleasant Grove City versus Summon. This case was about people wanting to put more monuments in a park. The court ruled that for example because a public park cannot accommodate unlimited number of monuments, government officials who oversee that park will have a compelling interest permitting them to select monuments but not others.

So they're allowed to pick and choose different things there. Which ones to put in because that's a compelling interest of the government.

So the question there with the compelling interest is that does a lawsuit is that considered a compelling interest of the government in order to ban that? We heard them say over and over again that they're trying to avoid lawsuits and things of that nature. Wasting tax dollars as a reason for putting the the restriction in place at that county commission meeting, but does that become a substantial government interest for that some other time place manner things.

Why is it okay to email but not talk at a BOCC meeting about the same issue that would be in the email? So this is considered the manner. So they're putting a restriction on the speech but not other speech. So the the manner of the speech. The manner of the presentation. Why is it okay to ban the speech in public when you can email and it's the same thing? So their their excuse was that it's presumed prejudicial because they're having that conversation in public. But we talked about ex-parte communication. Email is ex-parte communication. If Jennings case said that all ex-parte communication is prejudicial, then an email would be prejudicial to the case as much as a someone talking at a public meeting. It would be prejudicial, so why is it okay to ban the speech at the public meeting if it's prejudicial? And allow the email to go through if that's also prejudicial?

So they're banning the manner in which the people communicates for that.

Alternative methods. This is the third pillar there email and quad judicial hearings. So we can argue that there's you know alternative methods available for this the speech so the only method available isn't getting up and talking at the county commission meeting and open to the public. You can email them and then you can go to the quasi judicial hearing and have a conversation with them there and make your statements heard there.

So we can say that this is satisfied because there's alternative methods available for that speech to be heard.

So talk a little about public forums. So public forums determine the scrutiny that the court gives the cases. So for instance if it's a traditional public forum like a park, it's under strict scrutiny which means that it's the highest standard that the court looks at and it's the most strict for the the government to prove their case.

So to evaluate government restriction on speech occurring on public properties course must determine how the regulated areas fit into the following categories.

Number one is a traditional public forum. These are places by long tradition or governments that have been devoted to assembling debates including public streets and parks. Basically these are all like your common areas that the government owns.

Importantly here "the government may regulate the time place and manner of expressive activities in a traditional public forum so long as those regulations are content neutral, are narrowly tailored and serve a significant government interest and leave open ample opportunities for communication."

This is the strict scrutiny test. Very rarely are these cases successful. Very rarely are the laws that guide traditional public forums successful because it's very strict scrutiny that the court gives them. But again they have to look at the significant government interests. They have to be content neutral and have ample opportunity for channels of communication.

Designated public forums. "The hallmark of a designated public public forum is that the government has made it generally accessible to all speakers um in a similar manner to the broad expressive authority that is permitted in traditional public forums. The government is subject to the same limitations that apply in traditional public forums."

Now we can argue that a designated public forum is a county commission meeting because what they're doing here is they're generally giving access to all speakers. The county ordinance allows anyone to get up and talk about anything they want to regarding that's under the jurisdiction of the county. So therefore it would be a designated public forum because they're allowing that speech and giving that permission to speech.

Importantly here these designated public forums don't exist normally unless they're given permission. So the courtroom that they're in for the county commission meetings is not a general place that you can just go to. It's not a traditional public forum. It's not like a sidewalk you can just walk in and give a speech or whatever you want to do there. But importantly to note here is that they are giving you permission to go there and speak during this this portion of the meeting. So therefore it's a designated public forum and all of the limitations under a traditional public forum apply. So it's a strict scrutiny test for them.

With that you can make an argument as well then, the county will certainly do this, is that the county commission is a limited public forum.

"In such forum a government entity may impose restrictions on expressive activity so long as the restrictions are viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light of the purpose served."

Now the difference between a designated public forum and a limited public forum.

"Limited public forums are generally forums that are created that allow for specific conversations or specific uses."

So if we look at this one here, "public school facilities during after school hours or the interior of a city hall." Those are limited public forums because they're allowing speech based on subject matter and or the speaker. County commission meeting allows if they were to restrict the speech to you can only talk about items that are on the agenda. That could be considered a limited public forum because you can only talk about those specific topics that are on the agenda. But because the county has the ordinance that says that it's open to anything. Any conversation. You can talk about anything that's under the jurisdiction, that then defines it as the other type it removes it from the limits of public forum.

"limited public forum is a subcategory of the designated public forum where the government opens a public forum but reserves access to it for only certain groups and categories of speech."

So again if they wanted to restrict the speech at the meetings to only things that are on the agenda, that would create the limited public forum. Whereas allowing all speech on any item under of the jurisdiction of the board, then becomes a designated public forum. Therefore it's under strict scrutiny and it's very similar to traditional public forums like your sidewalks and your parks and things of that nature.

So in conclusion we have a couple things to think about here

The main argument is that the county can restrict your speech because it's trying to avoid a lawsuit. The problem with that argument is that there are ways that the county has to remove the prejudice presumed under Jennings. They can create an ordinance that removes that prejudice. So the argument there is that create the the ordinance and then all of those issues goes away. Then you can listen to every single person open to the public and talk about their thing.

Again the same thing goes with the emails the county encourages emails which are also presumed prejudice. So on one hand they're saying that your comments at the public podium are considered prejudice, therefore we can't listen to them. However send us all of your emails send us all of those things and those are okay. But again those also presume prejudice, so why is the email okay but not the conversation at the podium? Again that's choosing the manner in which you express that thought and again it could also argue the place for that as well.

Avoiding a lawsuit may not be a significant government interest, so is that a reason that they can limit what is said at the podium? Because they're afraid of a lawsuit? Let's assume that it is government interest. Government cannot restrict speech based on the content of that speech. So assuming that they can say they can make the argument that this is significant government interest to get you know to avoid lawsuits. You know that's saving tax dollars. It's responsible government. And it's a significant government interest. Assuming all that is true they still can't restrict your speech based on the content of that speech.

If we were to get up and talk about whatever that's okay but they're restricting the specific content of you cannot talk about pending land use cases because of quasi judicial and all those things. So they're banning that particular speech based on the content. County rules and public meetings allow discussion on any topic under the jurisdiction of the board again they're giving you guys permission to talk about anything that's under their jurisdiction. That would also extend to quasi judicial stuff. So they can't ban that speech because they have that in there.

Now if they wanted to change that ordinance. If they wanted to say that you can only talk about things that are on the agenda, then obviously that land use case is not on the agenda, so therefore they're not violating any first amendment because the the government is allowed to make those restrictions. But as it stands they're allowing you to talk about anything under their jurisdiction. They can't stop you from talking about the quasi judicial and pending land use cases. Even if adopting quasi judicial procedures, those procedures do not ban speech outside the the hearing.

So I read you guys the overarching quasi judicial rules. I read you guys the policies and things of that nature. Nothing in those rules bans people from talking publicly about whatever they want to talk about. Nothing there bans them from going to a county of commission meeting and talking about the land use case. In fact, I showed you guys state law that says that any person can talk about those things to any commissioner, any board member that they want to based on state law.

Again it's up to the counties individually to decide if they want to opt into those laws that remove the prejudice.

So overall I think that we found pretty compelling arguments that that May 27th meeting was a violation of the First Amendment. I believe that we have enough evidence there to push that. I was not involved in that. Yhey didn't ban my speech or anything, so I can't do anything for that. But my push to the county is to say "Hey look guys you guys were wrong in that instance. You guys were banning speech that is should be allowed to happen under the First Amendment"

Unless they address those particular instances. Unless they address the ordinance that allows people to talk about anything that's under their jurisdiction, then we should be allowed to talk about anything under jurisdiction.

Again the quasi judicial procedures do not ban that speech from happening. The county also has the ability therefore to create a law and an ordinance that allows them to remove the prejudice from those communications. So if their argument is that you know you can't have that conversation because it's going to be prejudiced, the same thing happens with the emails.

So we talked about my challenge to the county is address those issues. Don't ban the speech. Don't ban people from talking about those things at the public meeting because that would then be considered a first amendment violation potentially. And that lawsuit is way more costly to defend than anything with the quasi judicial lawsuit going forward.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed that video. Hopefully that was educational for you guys. Stay tuned. I got some more stuff coming forward you guys talk about different things. I'm going to do a deep dive into quasi judicial hearings so check out that if you would like to know more of how those things work but until then have a great day. Thank you!