The ACLU of Rhode Island today commended Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea for introducing, the General Assembly for passing, and Governor Gina Raimondo for signing legislation adopting online voter registration for the state’s residents, and particularly for addressing voters with disabilities.
While Rhode Island is the 35th state to adopt online voter registration, its law is the first in the country to establish detailed assurances that voters with disabilities will have full access to this online process.
Without such assurances, people who are, for example, blind or visually impaired or who have disabilities preventing them from using a mouse or keyboard would likely face difficulties registering online. However, Rhode Island’s new online voter registration law:
- Requires experts on website disability access to be included in the development of the site and to verify that it is useable for people with disabilities;
- Requires the site to follow certain detailed accessibility standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium; and
- Requires full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Nicole Kief, Advocacy and Policy Strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said: “We applaud Rhode Island for setting a national standard. As states update their voting systems to fit with modern life, it’s critical that those systems are open and accessible to all voters.” Susan Mizner, Disability Counsel at the ACLU, added: “Rhode Island’s preemptive action to ensure accessibility is not only smart as an inclusive step, it’s also financially savvy. It will save Rhode Island the costs that other states are likely to incur when they have to re-design their inaccessible websites.”
[from a press release]
ACLU offers legal representation to Warwick Beacon and Warwick Post against potential lawsuit
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Addressing a brazen attempt to chill freedom of speech, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today announced it has agreed to provide legal representation to the Warwick Post and the Warwick Beacon, both of which have been threatened with a defamation suit if they write stories about the contents of a public document.
The threat, by the Warwick School Department’s outgoing director of human resources Rosemary Healey, was made in response to the imminent release of a report prepared for the school committee, examining how Healey and other school administrators handled accusations of sexual misconduct made against a junior high school science teacher. The Attorney General recently ruled that the report, with certain information redacted, was a public record.
Even though Healey’s attorney, Jeffrey Sowa, acknowledged that Healey had not “been given the opportunity to substantively review the report,” he called the report “neither fair nor impartial” and “defamatory and malicious” in his letters to the publishers of the Post, a news website, and the Beacon. While further acknowledging that the Attorney General had ruled the document a public record, Sowa wrote that the publishers would “not be insulated from liability” for releasing information about the report, and that they should “cease and desist from publishing any matters relating to” Healey.
ACLU volunteer attorneys Neal McNamara and William Wynne from the law firm of Nixon Peabody have agreed to defend the newspapers if Healey follows through on her threat of legal action. Both papers are prepared to publicize the report, which is expected to be released sometime later today.
Warwick Post publisher and editor Robert Borkowski said today: “I’ve often been threatened with frivolous lawsuits aimed at scaring me away from reporting on public matters and records in 20 years of community journalism. This was the first time it directly threatened a business I owned, though, and it rattled me. But Attorney Sowa, who must surely be aware of First Amendment protections regarding reporting on public officials and documents, sought to bully Mr. Howell and me into walking away from our responsibility to give the parents of Warwick the information they need to assess the deeds of the people they entrust their children to each day. So when I thought about that, I was only rattled a little while. Fortunately for Warwick parents, Mr. Howell, and me, the ACLU of Rhode Island has agreed to offer us legal representation if Sowa and his client make good on their threat.”
John Howell, publisher of the Warwick Beacon, added: “Ever since the School Committee completed an investigation of how its administrators handled complaints about a teacher drawing phallic symbols on the arm of a junior high school female student last spring, the Warwick Beacon has sought to get a copy of that report. That request was denied by the committee and later by the city after it used its subpoena powers to get the school report. Fortunately, the Attorney General agrees the report is public. Given that ruling and our belief that the citizens of Warwick have the right to know how their school administrators acted, I intend to publish those findings.”
ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown stated: “A public employee’s threat to sue newspapers for doing their job – informing the public about the contents of a public document on a matter of enormous public interest – attacks the very heart of the freedom of the press. Over twenty years ago, the General Assembly passed a law to protect people from lawsuits that have a chilling effect on speech. As that statute, known as the anti-SLAPP law, points out, ‘full participation by persons and organizations and robust discussion of issues of public concern … are essential to the democratic process.’ The public document at issue here deserves a full airing, and the First Amendment was designed to allow that airing. We are prepared to vigorously defend the Post and the Beacon from this threatened abuse of the legal process.”
ACLU report finds numerous violations of Open Meetings Act
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Public meeting agendas in Rhode Island are “often vague, lacking critical information, and at times entirely unhelpful” to residents attempting to participate in their government, a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has found. In reviewing just one week of public meeting agendas, the ACLU of RI discovered numerous violations of a critical portion of the state’s Open Meetings Act (OMA), and recommended that the law be strengthened in order to adequately protect the public’s right to know.
Today’s report, “Hidden Agendas,” focuses on the Open Meetings Act’s requirement that state and local agencies clearly specify in their agendas what is to be discussed at meetings, and that they post the agendas at least 48 hours before the meeting date. The ACLU review of the agendas for every public meeting held during the week of October 5, 2015, found that many of them failed to offer meaningful explanations about the items to be discussed. In addition, the statute’s 48-hour notice requirement was undermined by public bodies’ use of weekends to comply with that timeframe, and served to discourage individuals, and particularly individuals in need of accommodations, from attending meetings.
“The net result of these practices is to make it much harder for members of the public to know exactly what public bodies plan to discuss at their meetings and, therefore, for the public to fully participate in the meetings or to contact members of the public body in advance to express views about items that may be discussed or voted upon,” the report stated.
The ACLU found that many agendas improperly listed only generic categories such as “Old Business” or “Reports” with no further explanation. The agenda for a Burrillville Planning Board Meeting, for example, included the item “Planning Board Discussion,” while a review of the meeting’s minutes shows the discussion included questions about the controversial proposed power plant in the town. In another instance, the Northern Rhode Island Conservation District posted an agenda consisting largely of acronyms such as “SCC,” “NRCS,” and “RIFCO” that hold little meaning to the general public. Meanwhile, an agenda for the Pawtucket Board of Appeals consisted only of one sentence and did not include the place or time of the meeting.
The state’s fire districts, many of which have histories of open government violations, also violated OMA’s agenda notice requirement in blatant ways. In just one of the examples highlighted in the report, the Hopkins Hill Fire District Executive Board posted an agenda that stated “New Business: None,” but meeting minutes show a number of votes were taken during “New Business,” including one authorizing the expenditure of $25,000.
The ACLU also found that public bodies frequently undermined the intent behind the 48- hour posting requirement by using the weekend to meet the timeframe, giving the public very little time to learn the contents of upcoming meetings. Of the 74 agendas posted for Monday, October 5th meetings, 25 of them – including those for nine Town Council meetings – were not posted until the Friday before. For example, the Monday agenda for a Jamestown Town Council meeting was formally posted at 4:54 PM on the Friday before.
The report further noted that by posting agendas insufficiently in advance, public bodies prevent or discourage attendance from individuals who, because of hearing impairments or other disabilities, are in need of reasonable accommodations at public meetings. In several instances, agendas posted just two days before a meeting required an individual needing communications assistance to contact the agency three days in advance.
“The importance of providing adequate advance notice to the public about a meeting, and the topics that will be covered, is too obvious to need to explain. In many instances, however, public bodies did what they could to minimize the impact of advance notice,” the report stated.
The ACLU of Rhode Island called for extensive amendments to the Open Meetings Act, which has not been comprehensively reviewed in nearly 20 years, in order to address these serious problems. Among the ACLU’s recommendations:
- The public should be given more than 48 hours notice about public meetings, and weekends and holidays should be excluded from the calculation. The timeframe for posting of agendas must also provide sufficient time for members of the public needing accommodations to request them.
- All public bodies should be required to post meeting minutes and audio-recordings of their meetings on the Secretary of State’s website. These steps will serve as an important check on violations of the agenda notification requirement and will promote greater transparency.
- The inclusion of common open-ended agenda items such as “Old Business,” “New Business,” and “Reports” without further explication should be prohibited.
- Every public body should be required to designate a person with responsibility for complying with the agenda notice provisions of OMA, and for certifying their knowledge of OMA’s requirements.
A copy of the report is available here: http://riaclu.org/images/uploads/OMA_report_Feb_2016_Final.pdf
Saxophonist Manny Pombo settles suit, may play without interference
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The City of Providence can no longer stop musician Manuel Pombo from performing or soliciting donations on city streets as part of a settlement reached today in a First Amendment lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island.
See: ACLU sues Providence for violating street musician’s free speech rights
The ACLU of Rhode Island filed a federal lawsuit in July on behalf of Pombo, a 62-year-old saxophonist, who had been arrested once, and threatened with arrest on numerous other occasions, while playing his saxophone on sidewalks and street corners in Providence. His “permission to perform” license issued by the city also prohibited Pombo from soliciting donations for his performances, and it allowed him to perform solely at the unbridled discretion of police officers. The ACLU argued this violated Pombo’s free speech and due process rights.
As a result of today’s settlement, filed in U.S. District Court, the City of Providence can no longer order Pombo to stop performing on public property or require him to obtain a permit to perform on public property absent violation of any other valid ordinances. The settlement agreement further stipulates that “because soliciting donations is protected speech under the First Amendment,” the City cannot stop Pombo from soliciting or accepting donations for his performances. The City also agreed to pay compensatory damages.
The lawsuit was filed by ACLU of RI volunteer attorneys Shannah Kurland and John W. Dineen.
Kurland said today: “We appreciate that the City was able to work with us to acknowledge Mr. Pombo’s right to make music in public spaces. Let’s hope that going forward municipal government will respect the Constitution without people having to sue our own city.”
Attorney Dineen added: “Ben Franklin, who was a busker in his early days, will be glad to see that the First Amendment still has some life in it, although it takes a street saxophonist and the ACLU to keep it going.”
This is the third lawsuit in five years that the ACLU of Rhode Island has filed against the City of Providence for interfering with the exercise of free speech rights on City public property. Two years ago, a federal judge agreed with the ACLU that Providence police violated the free speech rights of a local resident when she was barred from peacefully leafleting on a public sidewalk in front of a building where then-Mayor David Cicilline was speaking. In 2014, the ACLU sued the Providence Police Department for violating the free speech rights of protesters at a fundraiser in Roger Williams Park for then-Gubernatorial candidate Gina Raimondo. That case is ongoing.
A copy of the settlement is available here: http://riaclu.org/images/uploads/Pombo_Settlement.pdf
Other documents related to the case are available here: http://riaclu.org/court-cases/case-details/pombo-v.-city-of-providence
[From a press release]