PAINT ROCK, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama mayor has backed down from an attempt to bar the media and out-of-towners from attending council meetings in her tiny, rural town.
Paint Rock Mayor Brenda Fisk told WAAY-TV she issued the ban earlier this year without knowing it would violate the law. Members never voted on the rules, written as a two-page memo on town letterhead, she said.
Fisk said she wanted to avoid Town Council meetings becoming a “circus” like they did a few years ago during a controversy over police in the town of 200, which is located about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Huntsville.
“It’s on me. I did it all. Nobody has approved anything. It is not policy. It will not be policy and we do not stand at the door and tell you you can, or cannot, enter. Everybody’s welcome,” Fisk said.
Fisk previously defended the ban to an area newspaper, the Jackson County Sentinel. “What goes on in Paint Rock is the business of the people who live in Paint Rock,” she told the paper.
Fisk relented after the newspaper published an editorial about the rule, which was in apparent conflict with the Alabama Open Meetings Act. Fisk said she made her initial comments to the newspaper believing a phone call from a reporter was a scam.
Johnathon Counts, a lifelong resident of Paint Rock who has known Fisk for years, said he doubted she was trying to do anything shady by blocking the media and others from meetings.
“She has a very good head on her shoulders,” said Counts.
Stupid is as Stupid does.
Only one of the first in what’s going to become a huge crowd of trumpian electeds who think they are monarchs.
If a town that size is doing anything reporters might be interested in, its elected leaders should probably be fired.
As a longtime fire-eating contortionist lion-taming reporter, I welcome this reversal.
Is this a variation on “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” or “What goes on in Buchenwald is the business of the people running the camp in Buchenwald”?
In her defense at least she owned up to it. On the other hand, any American who doesn’t understand the First Amendment should probably be stripped of their citizenship.