King Steele loses it over a tiny tape recorder

By BEN NELMS

After attending and reporting on hundreds of public meetings I experienced something last week I’d never seen before. It happened at the July 21 meeting of the Fayetteville City Council. And it came courtesy of Mayor Kenneth Steele.

As is often customary for me at the Fayetteville City Council and other many other meetings, I placed my audio recorder on a front table to better pick up the speaker’s words.

(I’m not the only one that has difficulty hearing the proceedings. Some citizens have told me that they too have a problem hearing the proceedings in the council chambers. And, as one citizen suggested, if I were hearing-impaired I likely would not qualify, under Steele’s view, to be a reporter.)

After I moved the recorder closer to the podium Steele interrupted the speaker to tell me I should put the recorder in my pocket. The city, after all, was taping the meeting, he said.

I didn’t turn it off but decided instead to sit in an empty chair at the table adjacent to the podium where I had placed the recorder.

The person at the podium resumed speaking, only to be interrupted again by Steele. The mayor then instructed me to put the recorder away and just take notes.

Steele said he didn’t care for my taping and continued by suggesting I was “tacky,” “presumptuous” and “unprofessional” for running an audio recorder.

Naturally, and regardless of Steele’s curious and dictatorial demands, I continued taping. And I will continue to do so. And just so you know, any member of the public (or media) is free to tape such meetings.

Personally and professionally, I respect the mayor’s preference to not be taped. However, lest he forget, he ran for and was elected to public office, was presiding in a public meeting and is subject to Georgia law, not to mention the U.S. Constitution.

The presence of audio or video devices in a public meeting is a way to provide enhanced coverage (not to mention much more detailed quotes) for citizens that were not at the meeting.

And since I don’t write shorthand, I content myself with taking notes AND using a recorder in portions of some meetings and when interviewing Georgia governors, state and federal elected officials, county commissions, planning commissions, school boards, development authorities, hospital authorities and an endless list of others that I interview in and out of government.

Not exactly a viable substitute for a monarch, Steele could easily function as a candidate for dictator, huffing and puffing as he lords over those below him when a topic or action surfaces that does not meet with his approval.

My crime, that of daring to tape a meeting in the presence of the self-appointed King Kenneth without his consent, was apparently clear reason for him to interrupt the speaker at the podium to declare that I am tacky, presumptuous and unprofessional.

As for me, I couldn’t care less if he jumps my case over taping. King Kenneth must believe his preferences somehow take precedent over Georgia law and the First Amendment, not to mention local government accountability and transparency.

I’ve already been asked by several people about a possible motive for King Kenneth’s little tirade.

Honestly, I don’t have a clue unless it had to do with the fact that former Officer Harold Simmons was in the audience again and later addressed the mayor and council.

Besides that, I can’t think of a reason, especially since I’ve recorded portions of nearly every city council meeting since I moved here a few months ago.

Fayetteville has enough problems already without King Kenneth creating others by making a mockery of state law and the First Amendment.

But wait! Wasn’t it only a couple of months ago when city police officers were told their attendance at a city council meeting (where issues pertinent to their employment would be discussed) would not be productive?

That’s right! It was the same city government. King Kenneth and the council said they had no knowledge that slaughter of the cops’ First Amendment rights had occurred.

And, in what is beginning to take on a disturbing countenance, no one on the city council uttered a word when, once again, the First Amendment was being trampled.

If King Kenneth’s disregard for state law and the public interest weren’t so disturbing, his actions last week would almost be laughable.

But those actions are serious and disturbing and would have been much more so, in my opinion, if he had gone off on someone not in the media.

The citizens of Fayetteville ELECTED a mayor. They do not live by the leave of a man who attempts to bully others, a man that makes his own rules when it suits his fancy or fails to be able to control his emotions when someone turns on a tape recorder during HIS meeting.

Steele is not a king. The people deserve better.