Council's bid for decorum draws an earful of static

March 21, 2008 Jersey Journal

A resolution to update the City Council's rules of procedure was tabled Wednesday night after a stir over a section on proper "decorum."

The proposed rule states that residents addressing the council "shall not make personal, impertinent, slanderous or profane remarks." If they do, the council would have the right to throw them out.

The rule would also ban other "disorderly conduct" and "loud, threatening, personal or abusive language," and would also include the conduct of council members, prohibiting them from interrupting each other and disturbing the proceedings in other ways.

But complaints about the proposal focused on the terms "impertinent" and "slanderous."

"When you say impertinent, when you say slanderous, you're talking about the content of the speech," said resident Michael Lenz, a frequent speaker. "As far as impertinent goes, I don't even know what it means. If I ask a question someone doesn't like, is that impertinent?"

Margaret O'Brien bucked the tide by speaking in favor of the clause. She said she wanted to "congratulate the council for eliminating things that aren't productive," such as cursing, yelling and attacking council members. "It's just wasting the time of the people who want to get up here and help."

Corporation Counsel Steven Kleinman, who wrote the resolution, said he took the wording from another municipality that had defended it successfully in a Federal Court of Appeals - to which several speakers replied: Why would you include language that has already been challenged in court?"

"This is just to keep a meeting from spiraling out of control," Kleinman said in an interview earlier in the day. "If someone like Michael Lenz comes up and speaks calmly, regardless of their view of the city, that's fine. But you can't come up and start screaming at people."

Council President Theresa Castellano and Councilwoman Beth Mason worked on the resolution with Kleinman.

"The decorum was something that I was against, but Mr. Kleinman wanted to bring it to the council," said Mason. She sent a letter protesting the wording to Kleinman and the council earlier this month.

Castellano also said she was also against the wording regarding decorum, but did believe that additional rules are needed to help keep order.

<CLICK HERE> to read Hoboken Law Director Steven W. Kleinman's "RESOLUTION ADOPTING NEW RULES OF PROCEDURE FOR THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HOBOKEN."

 This story will be updated as events unfold.