Don’t rush to silence public comments at Tri-Cities government meetings | Opinion

Benton County and other local governments have been lucky so far. Bigots, racists and worse have not yet disrupted their public meetings.

Until they do and until they become a persistent problem, elected officials should continue to maximize opportunities for public engagement.

City councils, county commissions and school boards in other places have had to contend with disruptions from virtual attendees. At a recent Walla Walla City Council meeting, people cloaked with online anonymity spoke during the public comment period. Each one quickly veered into despicable, vulgar racism and antisemitism.

Benton County commissioners discussed whether to preemptively adopt rules to try to prevent such behavior. Under their current rules, every speaker gets three minutes to talk about pretty much anything. The county cannot simply end all remote comments.

Washington state law requires reasonable accommodation for people who can’t attend a meeting in person. With that loophole, it would be easy for a troll to lie. Besides, remote access to public meetings is one of the few good things to emerge from the pandemic.

People have unprecedented opportunities to participate in local government. Where once working parents did not have the time to attend a county meeting to testify about a public matter, they now can do so from home while watching the kids.

Officials instead could limit public comments to items on the agenda. That’s the route some communities have chosen, but it’s overly restrictive. A resident couldn’t ask for a stop sign or commend an employee if those topics weren’t on the agenda.

Another approach suggested by county staff would ban comments on anything outside the scope of a governing body’s authority. That might sound good, but what falls within the scope of county power is by no means clearly defined.

The war in Gaza doesn’t seem like it’s within the scope of any local government, but that hasn’t stopped Seattle, Olympia, Bellingham and San Juan County and other entities from passing resolutions about it.

Even more challenging, governments that limit speech would have to do so evenhandedly. If someone can’t be an antisemite, someone else can’t use the comment period to extol the virtues of Jesus Christ, as one commenter did at the Benton County meeting.

Presented with these options, Benton County’s three commissioners wisely chose none, at least for now. They stood up for free speech and for making it easy to comment on public matters.

If that fails, they could follow the suggestion of Commissioner Jerome Delvin. “Maybe we could just keep a firehose up here,” he joked.

Governments shouldn’t limit public discourse just in case it gets ugly. The price of free speech is sometimes hearing offensive things.

The First Amendment protects most speech, including bigoted speech. Walla Walla might violate constitutional bounds with its new rule that gives the mayor wide discretion to cut off people he deems to be “making irrelevant, personal, impertinent, overly redundant, vulgar, or slanderous remarks that disrupt, disturb or otherwise render orderly conduct of the meeting unfeasible.”

One person’s irrelevant, impertinent, vulgar comment is another’s topical, insightful wit.

A better start would be more transparency. A government meeting is an official proceeding where speakers can be required to identify themselves truthfully.

A county or city can ask speakers to sign up in advance and provide proof they are who they say they are. Walla Walla might have expected trouble from commenters using obviously fabricated names like Andy Zemite and Theodore Kaczinski.

Bigotry and hatred fester in the shadows. If Benton County and other governments verify who virtual speakers are in advance, it would force speakers into the light. Require them to turn on their cameras, too.

People have the right to promulgate awful ideas, but they should have to own them when they’re made at a public meeting. Social opprobrium toward those who behave like trolls can go a long way.

The problem is not that there’s too much speech but too little decorum. In recent years, Americans have become coarser in their behavior, especially when it comes to politics. Elected officials should lead by example and reward civil discourse.