Cottonwood’s cowards cannot silence speech

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to peti­tion the government for a redress of grievances.”

This foundational statement is the first and most important of our civil rights in America. The U.S. Constitution was only ratified by the states after the first Congress promised in 1789 that the language that became the First Amendment, and the other nine amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights, would be drafted and sent to the states for ratifica­tion. These amendments were ratified by the states between Nov. 20, 1789, and Dec. 15, 1791, when they became law.

Schoolchildren learn the First Amendment in their civics class.

Journalists can recite it from memory.

Activists from the mainstream to the left to the right and all persuasions in between call upon its protections to speak truth to power, to march in the streets, to lobby their lawmakers on policy and have their opinions published by a trustworthy press dedicated to furthering the ideals of our democratic republic.

However, in Cottonwood, the new city council majority is apparently so terrified of the public, of residents speaking in public, of their neighbors writing letters to their newspapers about legitimate grievances in the functioning of their govern­ment, that they use the petty power of their council position to attack residents to their faces in the public record in an attempt to terrify them — and witnesses — into silence.

At a meeting on Jan. 16, Councilman Michael Mathews called out a woman who has written letters to this newspaper and others — protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech — and our right as media outlets to publish what we see fit — protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of the press — and publicly berated her for exercising her constitutional rights.

This woman had applied to serve on the city of Cottonwood’s Board of Adjustment, one of its least significant public committees, composed of unpaid volunteers who hear appeals of planing and zoning variances, and one that has struggled merely to meet the minimum quorum requirement.

I’ve been covering news in Sedona and the Verde Valley for Larson Newspapers for nearly 20 years and we have never covered a board of adjustments meeting because they are so inconsequential to municipal functioning that they rarely if ever rise to the level of public newsworthiness. If a homeowner wants to build a wall two inches taller or wants a ditch a few feet farther from a property line than allowed by city code and it’s denied, they can appeal to these boards.

Yet council is so terrified of this woman having a portion of the minuscule authority of a collective body that they refused to vote her onto the board out of utter fear. Three council members, following Mathews’ lead like a herd of blind sheep, voted in lockstep and she was denied a seat 4-3.

The vote was not based on her qualifications, but because she had the gall, the arrogance, the willful pride to use her First Amendment right to send letters to local newspapers about her views on city government unrelated to anything remotely associated with her duties on an unpaid volunteer board.

This is the same council that voted against a code of conduct for council members and the same Mathews who refused to condemn the sexual harassment and sexual misconduct of a fellow councilman toward female city staffers even after a city Human Resources report indicated that councilman admitted to knowingly sexually harassing a staffer.

It’s clear from their actions on this trivial issue that anyone who criticizes them more substantially in a newspaper or on social media or in the public may wind up on a mental “enemies list” that council members will use to deny them fair treatment in the public forum should they come before council to speak their minds, or request municipal action, or want to serve their city on an unpaid committee but need their approval. Honesty and integrity are foreign concepts to Mathews.

After Mathews was angered by the guest perspective written on Jan. 4 by Mayor Tim Elinksi, we offered Mathews the chance to write one himself, because we in the press value an open exchange of ideas.

Mathews refused. He doesn’t want to speak to you, his constituents, via the largest newspaper in the Verde Valley — likely because that might prompt readers to write responses, and he fears you and your rebuttals.

Mathews is running for mayor of Cottonwood. Does he think, if he wins, that Cottonwood residents will be silent? That they will be so fearful of his admonishment at council meetings that they will allow his abuse of power, his unconstitutional attacks on your First Amendment rights to go unanswered? Or that vocal criticism in the press outlets he attacks will cease?

If anything, criticism by residents will intensify with every cruel action he displays, every callous attack he employs, every malicious stunt he attempts to quiet his foes — and his foes are residents who value honesty, integrity, fair play, democracy and dispassionate, thoughtful, benev­olent governance, not spite, pride, vanity and cowardice.

Cottonwood residents are not cowards. They will not hide their political views from a pharisaical municipal bureaucrat who envisions himself a king of the council.

And we will print them.

The rights enshrined by the First Amendment demand we, as American citizens and the American press, do no less.

Christopher Fox Graham

Managing Editor

Send your letters to the editor to editor@larsonnewspapers.com. You must include your legal name, street address and phone number for verification purposes; but only you name and hometown will be published. Letters must be 300 words or less.