[Peace-discuss] Urbana City Council meeting last night

[Karen Medina]

The Urbana City Council met Monday night. The meeting was about UPTV and Mr. Dunleve's hate speech dvds from David Duke. The meeting went on for 4-1/2 hours (7pm-11:33pm).

UPTV was #8 on the agenda, so people stood through the long presentation about the plan for the Boneyard. They stood through a public arts report and proposal. They stood through the combining of the conflicting revisions of the arts proposal. And literally dozens of people spoke on the hate speech vs. free speech issue (they were given 5 minutes apiece). The other points made were: hate speech leads to violence possibly of some unstable person who watches and then decides that the Jews are to blame for everything, that vandolism and grafiti have already been a problem for years, that Dunleve did not have copyright permission for a long time and that he had removed the titles and credits on the shows so that nobody could tell where he was getting the stuff for a long time, that the city could be sued, that tax money should not go toward this, and how horrible it was to know that someone out there wanted to kill them.  

Around 10:45, the Council paused the UPTV discussion and rushed through the remaining 7 items on the agenda. Then returned to the UPTV discussion again, giving the last 6 people who wanted to talk about 2 minutes apiece. Durl Kruse was the next to last to speak. He mentioned that no tax money is involved, that it comes from the cable agreement. He also mentioned that the issue was not really hate speech vs. free speech, but I forget what he did say it was (forgive me). Durl did well to show compassion and understanding to entire community. 

The public discussion was not acted on, but will pick up again in 2 weeks. The council members were all too tired. The lawyer for the city was asked to look in to a few issues and prepare a report. I think it was Charlie Smythe who asked "Could a group of people sue Mr. Dunleve". The lawyer said "I can give you a quick answer right now." But they decided that it would be best to wait on that issue as well.

The media was there. Channel 15's camera left around the time the open topics finished. The News-Gazette and WILL stayed throughout. And a few TV people stayed, but I don't think there was a camera with them (there might have been).

It had been grueling. The Urbana City Council Chambers were  packed. Standing room only at the beginning, then large pockets of people stood in the hallway for a long time. Dwindling over the extended time, there were finally enough seats for anyone who wanted one.

After the meeting was adjourned, on the way out the door, one man told Durl that since the City Council Chambers were used for some of the filming of UPTV content, that tax money was involved. A parking lot discussion with Durl and some of the community involved may have led to some other ideas.

-karen medina