Free speech gorillas?  Skin as thick as a rhino?  Just take it like a duck?  Animal metaphors ran wild Tuesday night at the borough assembly’s committee meeting on government affairs. Public officials and community members engaged in a spirited debate about creating a borough anti-bullying policy. Some members supported imposing restrictions on public comments, while others argued that doing so would make the First Amendment a sacrificial lamb.

The borough’s Government Affairs and Services Committee is considering creating a new anti-bullying policy after several emotionally charged interactions at recent assembly meetings.

One incident happened at an assembly meeting on January 23. Mayor Tom Morphet gaveled community member Don Turner into silence during public comments.  He said Turner could not address assembly member Natalie Dawson by name and that public comments needed to address the whole assembly, rather than targeting individual members.  

The incident followed a series of interactions, over the course of the last few assembly meetings, in which Dawson said that Turner was targeting her.   Committee Chair Kevin Forester stated that after one interaction, Dawson left the meeting “shaking and in tears.”  These interactions, in part, prompted the committee to start discussions of adopting an anti-bully policy within the chambers.

During discussions at Tuesday’s committee meeting, several people raised questions about whether gaveling Turner violated his right to free speech.  Morphet defended his decision to gavel Turner, and added that limitations on public comments should be broadened further.

“And that was when I ran, I said, if there was, you know, something that somebody wanted to put it on the agenda about the Iraq War, I’d say we got three and a half hours here, take it to the coffee shop. This is not open mic that we have here,” Morphet said. “And you know, if we can address it in the bailiwick  of the Haines borough, then that’s my feeling. I’m not saying this is what I’m enforcing, This is my feeling. If  a bunch of free speech guerrillas wanted to come in, and we give them each three minutes, we’re gonna be here till 10 listening to people talk.”  

But Borough Clerk Alekka Fullerton cautioned Morphet that his inclination to restrict the content of public comments was not related to “time, place or manner.”  She said that limiting the public comments to agenda items, or to issues that don’t immediately seem relevant to Haines, is too narrow.

 “Many people think we should have a policy on the war…” said Fullerton.

“In Gaza,” saidTom.

“Yeah, absolutely.  There are people who believe that the Haines Borough should take a stand on that,” Fullerton said. “So, to the extent that people have a right to redress and try to convince the Assembly that they should take a stand on that, I think they probably have a right to. And with respect to singing a song, I mean, is the song about Lutak Dock?” 

Beyond time limits, the borough has an existing code that restricts  the “manner” of speech.  The  ordinance prohibits obscene gestures, profane language, or “language which could reasonably be expected to cause a reasonable person to fear personal violence.”  

Alaska’s Open Meetings Act says that it is unlawful for anyone to prevent, obstruct or disrupt a public meeting.  And it allows for some restrictions on public comments including time, place and manner. In a memo interpreting state law on the public’s right to be heard, former Alaska attorney general Gordon Tans wrote that: “The manner in which a person may speak may also be controlled in order to preserve the decorum of the meeting. Limitations on the content of speech, however, may implicate First Amendment free speech issues, so caution is advised in this area.”

Committee Chair Forster said that he’d like to explore a way that an anti-bullying policy and First Amendment rights don’t conflict.  He said he wanted to uphold free speech, but to also take into account how people are impacted during assembly meetings.  

“I mean, there’s been a series of public officials who have left office and or felt like they would never do it again. Or even specifically, the number of people that came up to me when I put my name in the hat and said, ‘Are you nuts?’ When I said, ‘What do you mean, are you nuts?’ They said, ‘You must have the skin of a rhinoceros.’ And so to a certain extent, like, I feel like you’re saying that up until now, it’s been like, we’re just going to take it on the chin. If there’s a way to take care of each other and allow for public discourse, I sure would love to pursue it,” said Forster.

Don Turner Junior’s son, Donnie Turner, said that it’s not just public officials who feel targeted and that community members are also impacted.  He said that he watched the meeting in question, and when his dad was gaveled, he thought his father was targeted by public officials and labeled as a bully.  And that unjustly making someone feel like a bully, is bullying.

 “I’ve never seen my dad ever yell at anybody, disrespect them, or anything like that. I mean, he got gaveled before he even said what he was gonna say,” Donnie Turner said. “And it was definitely public information. It was about something that happened before and it was between assembly members talking to MARAD, which is not, you know, you’re not supposed to directly talk to these contractors, you know, the assembly is supposed to do it or through the manager. It was definitely a public issue. He never, ever raised his voice. I’ve listened to him lots.   And he’s really robotic. He never says he never raises his voice, never points his finger, never. You know. And so, and I hear this, that he’s bullying people. And bullying is different than just having a different opinion.”

Assembly Member Natalie Dawson told KHNS last month that the borough needs to clearly define bullying, and that implementing an anti-bullying policy had the potential to turn assembly meetings into a “safe space” to conduct business.  She said that her background is in education, and that she knows of many schools that have bullying policies, and that the borough could use those as examples.  She said we can learn a lot from kids.

But assembly member Debra Schnabel, who agreed Morphet’s decision to gavel Turner, didn’t think that the assembly needed to adopt an official policy.

“I do think,  though, that we need to set some expectations for how people should behave in this forum. And the civility is number one,” Schnabel said. “And that’s one of the things I thought of and just offer it is, you know, if we had outside of this door, all ye who enter here are expected to, you know, and then the form agreements, be impeccable with your word. Don’t take anything personally. Do your best and don’t make assumptions. That kind of behavior, if taken to heart,  would keep people focused on the business that we have before us.”

Assembly Member Gabe Thomas argued that informal expectations of conduct were, in the past, biased toward more liberal members.  He said he was personally attacked in the past during public comments about his property taxes, and that no one silenced the individual.  And he criticized the mayor for laughing at members of the public during comments.

“It’s about perception, though. If it’s the left doing it, we don’t care if it’s right doing it. We care. We’ve got to stop that. We want to stop the fight. Tom, you can laugh all you want you laughed at a person in the public,” Thomas said.

” I’m not laughing at you” said Morphet responded. 

“Last time was with (a member of the public) during the public comment. We have to show the respect. We don’t show the respect. We’re not gonna get the respect,” said Thomas.

The Haines Borough is not the first municipality to grapple with questions of civility in a public meeting.  

In December 2023, the City Commission of Bay City, Michigan banned public comments that were “derogatory,” “vulgar,” or “demeaning” to city officials or employees.  The Commission suffered public scrutiny by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, a First Amendment rights group, and in January of 2024, the commission removed those restrictions.

And in 2021, the Urbana, Illinois City Council faced  a similar situation to what happened at the local assembly meeting.  The city council muted citizens during public comment for criticizing their mayor and a city staff member.  The City Council had previously adopted rules for public comment which included provisions governing public comment regarding “respect for others” and prohibiting “ridicule”, “personal attacks” and “abusive” language. 

The state’s Attorney General and Public Access Counselor reviewed the meeting.  They concluded that the City Council violated provisions of the Open Meetings Act.  They said that the public comments were “matters of public concern protected by the first amendment.”  Their review went on to say that when criticism was about the conduct of public officials, “significant latitude must be allowed by the public body”.

The next Assembly meeting will be on Tuesday.