Subject: Angry Citizens Protest (fwd)
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 110020 -0600 (CST)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org>
--------------------------------------------------
Hi everybody:
Having just torn myself away from the impeachment hearings, it
may be understandable that I want to add some thoughts to the very
interesting news report below......
The report below deals with what is happening to our once proud
American democracy at the lower (community) level. The impeachment
issue, I submit, is trying to deal with the same issue at the highest
level of our "once proud" democracy.
In both cases, I submit, the issue is the behavior of public officials
who not only flout the "law" of the land or the community, but who
are also exceedingly arrogant and "dictatorial" in the process....
ONLY THE PUBLICS FAILURE to enforce the existing laws (including the
Constitution) stand between the arrogance of these public officials
(the President!) and the dissolution of that once proud democratic
system which we call "American"......
The statement made by Congressman Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas in the
impeachment hearing this morning beautifully illustrate my point. I hope
all of you will succeed in obtaining his statement, read it, and try to
understand why the "impeachment of the President" is NOT about "sex" ...
it is about preserving our system of law which says that "all persons are
equal under the law" ... and public officials who flout that principle
ABSOLUTELY MUST be held accountable...... Including the President of the
United States......
In the end, it is up to US -- all Americans -- whether or not we succeed
in maintaining that once proud AMERICAN democracy...... I thank people
(politicians) like Asa Hutchinson who are trying to do their duty on our
behalf.... But we must not leave it all to them -- we must do our part
in the "activist" manner you see reported below -- as well!!!!
Cheerio.....
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
rbeavers@llion.org..............http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html
................................It is better to light a single candle ...
than to curse the darkness...............................................
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 11:08:43 -0500
From: CG
To: rbeavers@llion.org
Subject: Angry Citizens Protest
>Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 11:05:45 -0500
>To: dingel@concentric.net
>From: CG
>Subject: Angry Citizens Protest
>
>The Advocate--Wellfleet Edition--Thursday-December 10th 1998
>
> ANGRY CITIZENS PROTEST CLOSED MEETING ON LAW SUIT
>
> GROSSMAN THREATENS TO CALL POLICE
>
>The Wellfleet selectman Monday had to threaten calling the police before a
group of more than two dozen angry residents obeyed the board's orders to
clear the room for a closed session.
>
>The citizens' group that fought unsuccessfully at last month's Special
Town Meeting to make the town's bylaw on telecommunications structures more
stringent, mustered 26 members to demand that they be allowed to sit in on
the closed meeting.
>
>The Selectman met with the planning board, Michael Ford, town council,and
a lawyer from Kopelman and Paige to discuss a lawsuit brought against the A
town by Omnipoint Communications.
>
>The cellular phone provider is during the town after the Planning Board
voted not to give the company a special permit to install antennas in the
steeple of the Congregational Church.
>
>Lynn Hiller of the citizens' group said the Selectman called for a closed
meeting to discuss the Omnipoint Lawsuit "agains6t the Town of Wellfleet".
>
>"We are citizens of the Town of Wellfleet and are thereby parties to the
lawsuit," she said. "We claim the right to participate on this process and
protest exclusion from this meeting. We want to be involved in the decision
making.
>
>"This activity affects all citizens and should be discussed democratically
in open session. To do otherwise suborns democracy. We question the
legality under the Massachussetts Constitution to holding this meeting in
executive session."
>
>Prior to the Citizens' group's complaint, Town Administrator Bill Dugan,
with the group sitting in the room, suggested the selectman move their
meeting to a small room at the Wellfleet Public Library.
>
>In answer to Selectmen David Earnst's questioning the move, Dugan said
discussions could be overheard from outside the Town Hall basement meeting
room in which the meeting was being held.
>
>The Selectman refused to move the meeting place. They voted to go into
closed session to "discuss pending litigation". After Hiller made her
statement claiming the citizens' right to take part in the discussions of
the lawsuit, the Planning Board then voted as well to go into closed session.
>
>Dugan told the citizens they must leave the room. "We reiterate our
request to stay," said Brent Harold of the citizens' group. Dugan said it
is not only customary for Town Officials to discuss litigation behind
closed doors, but he could recall no board ever discussing a lawsuit in
public.
>
>"As citizens, you should have a concern about your selectman if they do
discuss a lawsuit in an open meeting," he said.
>
>Grossman said the citizens' objections were listened to and noted.
>
>"I guess we'll just have to call the police," he said, when the citizens
remained seated.
>
>"All right, let's go," said Harold, and the group started to file out.
>
>But in answer to a citizen's remark about the citizens' voices being heard
in the majority of Town Meeting that voted against cellular telephone
towers Grossman said, "Your voice has no place in this session."
>
>"Now are you going to leave peacefully?" he asked. "We don't have to
leave," said Pavia of the citizens' group. "But we will."
>
>The last thing the citizens' heard as they left the room was Grossman's
voice. "Shut the door," he said.
>
>Some members of the group stood in the parking lot outside Town Hall
chanting causing the selectman to close the windows of the basement meeting
room.
>
>"We couldn't hear anything," Selectman Larry Gallagher said Monday night.
>
>Hiller said Monday night that she and other members of the group stayed
until the selectman came back out into open session.
>
>"We were allowed to ask a few questions," she said. "But they were not
welcomed."
>
>Hiller said the selectman did not give satisfactory answers to a question
about qualifications for membership on the Planning Board. Also, she said,
when asked of the minutes of the closed meeting might become public, the
selectman, the selectman said to just keep checking from time to time.
>
>"We felt we did accomplish our point," said Hiller. "We let the selectmen
know the people have a right to take part in government. We are the
government."
>
>She said many townspeople question whether town officials actually have
the best interests of the Town at heart.
>
>Gallagher said Monday night that while he could not discuss details of the
closed meeting, he could assure Wellfleet citizens that the board is doing
what is in the best interests of the town.
>
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html