City Council WE HAVE A VOICE!

We, the undersigned citizens of Charlottesville and surrounding counties, call upon the Charlottesville City Council to allow people with dissenting views to be heard in Council chambers and to vacate new meeting procedures put into place in February 2016, some of which are likely unconstitutional, that were designed to put a higher value on efficiency and decorum over an open and free exchange of ideas. When the City’s own Human Rights Commission speaks out against limitations on public expression and is overruled by a majority of Councilors, we question the Council’s commitment to hearing a diversity of opinions, especially opinions that run counter to their own. We the people ask for FULL transparency in Council meetings so that the citizens of Charlottesville may observe their elected officials in action without the cameras being turned off at the discretion of a mayor who was not directly elected. Therefore we the people of Charlottesville and surrounding counties call for City Council to return to meeting rules in place before February 2016 and used quite effectively by other Councils and other mayors. Specifically we ask the following: That the lottery system for public comment be vacated; That the regulation limiting individual councilor speech be vacated; That the regulation limiting total time allocated to any one issue be vacated; That the regulation allowing the mayor wide discretion to determine what is appropriate speech be vacated; That the regulation allowing the mayor to turn off public access cameras be vacated; That City Council return to meeting rules that had been enforced before February 2016 and used quite effectively by previous Councils. Democracy is more important than efficiency.