After reading your March 8 issue, I must admit to be totally flabbergasted by what is going on in our city.

I am a Cuban-born, proudly nationalized American citizen. In March of 1958 I was trapped in Havana until September of 1959 and experienced the repression of the Castro regime where exercising your freedom of speech meant a one-way trip to the firing squad or unbearable torture in prison. Needless to say, leaving Cuba on Sept. 22, 1959, was one of the happiest days of my life. Even though every material possession was taken away from me, I had finally attained freedom!

On the wonderful day in 1969 when I was granted U.S. citizenship, the Ladies Auxiliary of the Jewish Veterans of the U.S.A. gave me a copy of the Bill of Rights. It now hangs proudly in my office next to my Certificate of Naturalization, and believe me, I read both often. I take the Bill of Rights and my citizenship very seriously.

The accounts of the latest meeting at which Mr. Steve Brown, whom I have never met, was denied his right to speak, was disgraceful, especially after allowing the speech by [Peachtree City Attorney Rick] Lindsey. How can Mr. Lindsey say that our First Amendment constitutional rights are limited?

I did not see anything in Mr. Brown's letter that would provide us anything other than what he found out after his search, and his opinion. Whatever happened to the right of free speech granted us by the First Amendment of our Constitution? What about the freedom of the press?

As far as the statement attributed to Mayor Lenox about “this is my meeting”: I must wonder whatever happened to the concept that elected officials are public servants in a form of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

I want to thank your newspaper [for] living up to its name. I want to thank Mr. Brown and Mr. Steve Fodor for being involved citizens, and lastly, I want to thank [Councilman Dan] Tennant for carrying out his campaign promises. We need more people like you, Dan!

By the way, this morning CNN reported in one of their “factoids” that according to the Freedom Forum, 12 percent of the American people think we have too much freedom of speech! Maybe they should try my native Cuba for a while!

Gerard Jansen
Gtm@aol.com

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