Free speech and other crazy ideas

Good for Martínez Saballos. The council disallowed remote public comment when, as happened in a number of cities, the process was hijacked by the usual gang of idiots who thought it was fun or clever or something else to spew hate speech about Jews and minorities.

The City Council always has had the ability to nip this behavior in the bud. Cities are not hostages. If someone uses public comment to violate local standards of civil conduct and discourse the mayor or designee can always cut it off — whether in person or remotely.

As I read the current Redwood City policy on unacceptable conduct at a council meeting, it appears they could broaden it to include comments about race, religion, creed and country of origin. There are plenty of rules in place for people who disrupt the meeting in person. They just need to be extended to people who are not there in person.

Since a laborious process apparently is mandatory, Martínez Saballos said he wants to see what neighboring cities are doing before making a final decision.

I can tell you. They continued to allow remote comment. The problem went away. Redwood City, on the other hand, freaked out, and it was a shame.

One of the few lingering benefits from the pandemic is that cities implemented a convenient process by which people can attend the meeting other than in person. This had a dramatic effect on the number of people who were showing up at meetings.

Not to invest this with more weight than it can bear, but this is a genuine free speech issue. The more that can be done to allow widespread participation — even if it makes us uncomfortable — the better.

And, it could be argued, it is more urgent than ever to buttress the right to speak one’s mind, given the assaults underway on this fundamental American value.

There are a lot of people who are upset, to the point of torment, by what is emanating from the White House. One journalist turned a nice phrase: “The first 100 days of Trump’s second White House term have brought an eye-watering amount of change to America.”

In nearly a half-century of covering politics, I have never seen a presidency so thoroughly characterized by greed, arrogance, cruelty and ignorance.

The answer, it seems to me, is to do what you do — whatever activities you might engage in that build community, advance decency and celebrate integrity.

I try to do my share here every week, focusing on local government, but holding it to the same standards we expect at every level of representation. And, to be honest, to make them just a little uncomfortable.

JUST A DOLLOP OF GOSSIP: I got a call from Thomas “Tip” Mazzucco, attorney for the embattled Sheriff Christina Corpus, who said that when he called me a gossip columnist, he meant it as a compliment. Sure. Why not?

In our brief conversation, one thing was evident: Mazzucco, former member of the San Francisco Police Commission, is a hard-charger and his approach to defending Corpus could best be characterized as “no prisoners.” In case you were worried this might get boring. … Mazzucco’s main focus was on the report prepared by retired Judge LaDoris Cordell. Um, he is not a fan. But the assumption here is that the next investigation into Corpus will adhere to a whole new standard, including testimony under oath. Far and away, the most interesting question is whether Corpus will testify and do so in public. She has said repeatedly that she wants all the facts to come out. We will see if that is true.

TIL: There is a new exhibit the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford in which 44 artists using photography to depict life in the Age of the Anthropocene. This is a term introduced 20 years ago as a “new geological epoch marked by human activity.” In other words, reflecting the full impact of humans on the global climate. I remember when New Age meant something else. The works do an effective job of illustrating how we have built, extracted and exploited the planet in unsavory and unsustainable ways.

The Cantor is a treasure — world-class exhibits across generations and the globe, including a massive collection of works by sculptor Auguste Rodin, which never cease to stir me. And it is free. Such a gift.

Mark Simon is a veteran journalist, whose career included 15 years as an executive at SamTrans and Caltrain. He co-hosts a podcast/videocast that can be found at TheGamePeninsula.com, and he can be reached at marksimon@smdailyjournal.com.