If it had been put to a vote of the people who signed up to speak at Monday’s public hearing, Rowan County’s next step in the mall purchase process would have been shut down fast, 73 to 9.
But as Chairman Jim Sides has said, all he needs is three votes, and this time he had four: his and those of Vice Chairman Craig Pierce, Chad Mitchell and Mike Caskey. They voted to move forward with seeking a $4 million loan to replenish the fund balance after paying for the mall and have funds to start renovations. Nothing anyone could have said at the public hearing would have changed their minds.
What Sides did in limiting comment was within the letter of the law though not the spirit. Experts at the School of Government in Chapel Hill point to state statutes that allow limits to be put on comments at public hearings — to a point.
“The basic law on this derives from First Amendment principles of free speech,” says Frayda S. Bluestein, an attorney and School of Government professor who specializes in this area. “So there can be reasonable ‘time, place, and manner’ restrictions, but they must be viewpoint neutral as written and as applied.”
When people who agree with the chairman’s stance on public prayer show up in droves, he’s willing to listen to every one of them. But when people who disagree with his mall purchase want to have their say, he’s quick to impose limits. How neutral is that?
Professor Rick Morse, also with the School of Government, said the law regarding public hearings gives broad discretion as to how hearings are to be conducted. “But where there is broad discretion,” Morse said, “the question of how to conduct the hearing comes down to what the board values, and there are many different ways to conduct a hearing accordingly.”
What the majority of commissioners valued Monday night was getting the hearing over with. Keeping the proceedings “viewpoint neutral” was an afterthought. Allowing five people on each side to speak sounds equal but was disproportionate to the 73:9 ratio of those who signed up. No matter. Commissioners had already decided how they were going to vote. They have sunk nearly $3.5 million of the county’s savings into the mall and now, in effect, are asking forgiveness instead of permission by replenishing the fund balance. The Local Government Commission is likely to give them what they want, though more than one opponent of the loan implied that they plan to be at the Raleigh meeting when the application is discussed.
Unfortunately, no amount of theatrics is going to un-buy the mall. The damage has been done. Maybe the number to keep in mind now is five, or rather fifth. In his bid for re-election, the chairman came in fifth in a race for three seats. His mandate has evaporated, but until early December, he has power and he has three votes — and a mall.