The following news story is provided compliments of The Laurel Outlook, from their Thursday December 5, 2019 edition.
“The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
While some folks posting on Facebook about the city may have chosen more acceptable language to express
themselves, they still have every right to. At Tuesday night’s City Council workshop, Council President Emelie Eaton
suggested that city employees and volunteers should have their voices silenced.
When Eaton requested the conversation on internet protocol, I initially assumed she wanted to discuss posts on
the city’s Facebook, or on the individual departments’ Facebook sites. There it makes sense to have rules guiding
the language used. But she complained about posts on the mayor’s re-election Facebook site.
As a public official and someone running for office, the mayor had no expectation of privacy, or of folks only posting positive remarks on his candidacy. (emphasis added)
One of her complaints was that the volunteer didn’t expressly write that his posts were opinion. That was painfully
clear to anyone reading them. They were reactions to real situations and just because Eaton hadn’t heard the
information posted doesn’t mean there was no basis in fact.
It was fairly obvious at Tuesday’s meeting that the council isn’t advised of everything. The councilmen/women
were certainlysurprised at the mayor’s decision on the fire and ambulance departments.
It appears that the city is moving forward to fix the problems with the ambulance department and I salute the mayor for realizing that the folks who already work or live in thecity have the knowledge and expertise to guide their departments.
Expandable Google Docs link follows: https://drive.google.com/open?id=138y-VTN3B9Y7Tx7NrDHn8Va3uw413jE1
The Laurel Outlook had the courage to take a stand on this issue. The Carbon County News on the other hand has not. A similar incident occurred recently in Red Lodge regarding their mayor and two council members. And The Carbon County News took no stance. Neither did they cover Carbon County’s dismal sugar beet harvest which prompted their county commissioners to issue a disaster declaration.