LEE COUNTY, Fla. — A Lee County woman was removed from a county commission meeting earlier this month, sparking questions about the fairness of her removal.
On Nov. 4., Marsha Ellis, a Lee County resident, stepped up to the podium during public comments at the Lee County Commission meeting to address changes to the county’s animal control ordinance.
“I’m speaking on item number seven today, which is to direct the public hearing repealing and replacing the animal control ordinance ,” Ellis said during public comment.
She said she was initially excited to share her ideas with commissioners.
“I was very optimistic going there that day,” Ellis said in an interview six days after the meeting.
But shows 36 seconds into her three-minute allotted time, District One Commissioner and Chairman Kevin Ruane interrupted her.
“County attorney, can I interrupt for a second?” Ruane said during the meeting. “Your comments about our public hearing date, nothing about the item itself. We’ll have that at the next meeting. You can give all the comments you want.”
Ellis said she believes the changes to the animal control ordinance do not reflect public concerns shared with commissioners during prior meetings.
“What is being proposed is anything but comprehensive, and it fails to address the many concerns brought before this body regarding animal control,” Ellis said.
Ellis says she attempted to redirect her comments.
“So, sir, I am asking that this item be tabled and it not be scheduled for public hearing so that the public can be involved,” Ellis said during the meeting. “So, I’m asking for this to be tabled.”
Before she could finish, video shows deputies escorting Ellis out of the meeting.
“I’m sorry but think I have a right to ask for the item to be tabled as part of the public hearing, because the public and the folks would like to-,” Ellis said before being escorted away from the microphone.
Ellis says the animal control ordinance wasn’t the only item she wanted to speak on.
“I was very upset because I wanted to comment at the end of the meeting about conservation lands and citizen participation, and I was not allowed to give comment about that,” Ellis said.
Court records show Ellis’s removal came nine days after she and her neighbors won a separate legal challenge against the county over rezoning land for a future sewage plant.
“I felt like, quite honestly, that it was because of the topic, and because of the retaliation regarding the judicial ruling,” she said.
According to on decorum during county commission meetings, “Any person who becomes disorderly or fails to confine remarks to the identified subject shall be cautioned by the chair and given the opportunity to conclude remarks in a decorous manner.”
Ellis says she was not given that chance.
WINK Investigates emailed every commissioner and the county attorney for an interview twice.
District 2 Commissioner and Vice Chairman Cecil Pendergrass’s assistant was the only one to respond.
“The commissioner has a full schedule today, but should anything change he will follow up accordingly,” Pendergrass’s Executive Assistant Christine Birnbaum said in an email.
First Amendment experts who reviewed the video and the county’s decorum rules say the situation could have been handled differently.
“It’s clearly not a situation where I think she was absolutely disruptive and kept the meeting from ever proceeding. I think there’s enough there that says they could have let her talk,” Kevin Goldberg, a First Amendment expert at the Freedom Forum, said. “They chose not to.”
Aaron Terr with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said in an email he believes commissioners had security escort Ellis out of the meeting before she was given a chance to redirect her comments.
“The First Amendment allows government bodies to require that public comments relate to agenda items, but such a rule must actually exist and it must clearly define what counts as ‘relevant,'” Terr said in a statement. “Officials also must enforce the rule reasonably and not take an overly narrow view of relevance. Even a constitutional rule can’t be invoked as a pretext to shut down a speaker for being critical or ‘disrespectful.’ That would violate the First Amendment’s bar on viewpoint discrimination. Also, the speaker appeared to try to redirect her comment after being warned that it was off-topic, but the commissioner summoned law enforcement before giving her a chance to do so. It’s far from clear that arguing an ordinance should be tabled is irrelevant to the topic of scheduling a public hearing on it.”
Ellis says she just wants to know the public won’t be silenced by officials when they have a concern.
WINK News has been emailing the commissioners since Friday and continues to push for a response.
We will update you on-air and online as we learn more.