Decorum rules at Jax City Hall meetings could tighten

The City Council is batting around whether to tighten rules governing public comment at City Hall. 

Council President Randy White filed the legislation at the request of the Office of General Counsel last fall, following a demonstration in City Council chambers by a pro-Palestinian group. The bill would further restrict words and actions by public commenters and audience members at City Hall. 

“We have seen some problems trying to keep decorum in our council meetings,” he said. “It’s not to trample on anybody’s rights.”

But some residents and several city leaders are not convinced that all the proposed restrictions are necessary — and some are concerned that the changes could limit citizens’ free-speech rights.

“I think some, and even some in the audience, thought I woke up one day and I wanted to trample on people’s First Amendment rights,” said White during a Rules Committee meeting on Monday. “That was never the point.”

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White said he would defer to the committee to “massage” the legislation, kill it or add to it. 

Ordinance 2024-0871 — which is only being weighed by the Rules Committee before heading to full City Council — would add finger snapping and sign waving to the list of prohibited behaviors, arguing they are disruptive. 

At the Monday meeting, most committee members agreed that those items could be considered “safety measures.”

Current public comment restrictions 

• No shouting
• No yelling
• No whistling
• No chanting
• No singing
• No dancing
• No clapping
• No foot stomping
• No cheering
• No jeering
• No using artificial noise makers or musical instruments
• No engaging in any other display of excessive noise, sounds, or movement

Leaders also appeared to agree that the size of signs held at City Hall might be further restricted, based on input from the sheriff’s office.

Several council members questioned another of the bill’s proposed prohibitions on political campaigning or electioneering at a meeting to include “a group of candidates, political party or ballot initiative in any election in which electors of Duval County can vote.”

Eric Friday, a local attorney who focuses on constitutional law, urged the council not to vote for the legislation in its current form, arguing the restrictions are problematic.

“So long as this council has decided that it is going to allow open public comment, it needs to be just that — open public comment on whatever a citizen needs to bring before this body,” Friday said. 

Friday also warned that sign-size rules need to be enforced fairly across all meetings or the city is bound to open itself up to lawsuits.

“When we are dealing with land use and zoning issues, for example, I know that much bigger signs come in here,” Friday said. “And when this council makes a decision to start limiting sign sizes based on their content — whether it’s land use and zoning versus something else that a member of the public wants to bring before this body — you’re going to run into a content-based restriction.”

Before the bill was filed 

No city official has publicly said what specifically led to the proposed changes. Blake Harper, a Jax resident and frequent commenter at council meetings, said leaflets dropped and sign waving during an Oct. 22 protest at City Hall were a likely catalyst.

He said while he is “diametrically opposed” to the pro-Palestinian group that demonstrated in October, he said he would fight for their right to share their opinions at City Hall and their ability to use signs to share their views. 

Harper has used signs to illustrate his points at City Hall, too, like when he called for keeping Confederate monuments standing in Jacksonville.

“This country was based on the ability for people with dissenting opinions to speak their minds, even though it was offensive to somebody else,” Harper says. 

Wrestling with restrictions

Legal precedent interprets the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights as prohibiting governments from limiting speech based on content.

District 14 Councilman Rahman Johnson, for one does not agree that the proposed rules would restrict free speech.

“I’m not going to repeat the things that I have been called over the holidays because of my support of this legislation,” Johnson said. “I understand decorum. That’s what this is about for me.”

Johnson asked a general counsel attorney, “Does this, in your interpretation as an attorney, based on what we see right now, limit the speech of anybody who comes up to that podium?”

City attorney Mary Staffopoulos replied that the proposed restrictions are “defensible time, place and manner restrictions on speech at the podium.” 

Rules Committee Chair Nick Howland deferred the issue to revisit in a couple weeks. 

“Anything that we would put in place, it needs to be very narrow,” said At-Large Group 5 Councilman Chris Miller. He theorized that year-round restrictions on electioneering would be difficult to enforce.  

“When you make blanket things like this — that pertains to all year round — well, why does it? If there’s no election cycle that we’re currently in, then there are valid, legitimate questions about freedom of speech infringements.”