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Writer's pictureStaff Report

Beware, the Great Lee County Firewall

Citizens may assume that the Lee County Commission meeting live streams which are posted online on the second and last Monday of every month are complete, however, these recordings are lying by omission.


Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions.

On July 12th of 2021, the Lee County Commission unanimously approved a motion to remove citizen comments from the meeting minutes and the live streams going forward; a callous denial of every citizen's right to bear witness to the concerns of their fellow residents. If one were to revisit that fateful decision, they may notice that particular meeting did not include the citizen comments in the minutes or the livestream before the motion had been made to remove them. That motion moved citizens comments indefinitely to the very beginning of the meeting before the official business begins and the pledge of allegiance is recited.


While county commissioners are not required by law to include citizen comments in the meeting, it is an established procedural norm and commonplace for public officials to include citizen comments in the minutes and/or the live stream of a meeting. Neighboring Russell County includes citizen comments in both their minutes and their live stream. Chambers County, neighboring Lee County to the North, does not live stream their meetings yet citizen comments are included in their minutes.


How do the cities of Lee County handle their citizen comments? Both the City of Auburn and the City of Opelika include citizen comments in their minutes and live streams. The City of Smiths Station does live not stream its council meetings, however, they do include citizen comments in their minutes.


What was the Lee County Commission's motive in adopting this unorthodox practice? It can be traced back to an incident which occurred when a member of the Lee County Watchdogs stood up in the October 13th, 2020 meeting and told the commissioners “You should all be ashamed of yourself! Put your heads down in shame!” This remark was provoked due to the actions of Oline Price, Revenue Commissioner for Lee County, requesting approval for her use of CARES funding to deploy police K-9 attack dogs in county offices for the enforcement of compliance with COVID policies such as the wearing of masks. Lee County Probate Judge Bill English, who as Chairman of the commission presides over their meetings, replied to the watchdog member “We are ashamed of you!” to which the member of the watchdogs responded “Go f*** yourselves!”. At this point, the individual was escorted out of the courthouse and subsequently banned from attending the meetings for twenty-six months.


After months of the watchdogs being consistently active in speaking out against the actions of the commission, Commissioner Long made the motion to strike public comments from the minutes and the live stream. The vote to censor was unanimous. Since this date, members of the Lee County Watchdogs have attended every meeting; diligently recording most proceedings with a GoPro or a similar camera. At each meeting, the members of the Lee County Watchdogs generally have something to say about the business of Lee County to the obvious annoyance of the commissioners. Commissioner Long replied to another citizen of Lee County, Micah Messer, via e-mail “Citizen comments are great when the person speaking has something to say other than complain about which wall the clock is hanging on. I take our meetings seriously but there continue to be those that don't. They try to disrupt the meetings every chance they get. As long as this is allowed to take place I will never vote to live stream those comments.”


Commissioner Long is referencing a watchdog request to move the three-minute timer that restricts the time a citizen can speak in front of the commission from the right side of the room to the front of the room for the citizen to better be able to see their remaining time. Other than the event which occurred on October 13th, 2020, there have not been any further disturbances of the meetings from citizens with the exception of Willie Philpot whose trash removal business was crushed by a Lee County Commission mandate forcing citizens to receive unwanted curbside garbage pickup service through an involuntary contract with a handpicked, government approved vendor. This action by the Lee County Commission effectively destroyed Philpot's family business which he had built from the ground up over the preceding nine years during which he had provided that same service to Lee County residents through the independent operation of his private company. During Philpot's disruption of that meeting which was recorded by the watchdogs, Philpot was told by Judge English that he had to stop talking after his three minutes were up. Instead of complying, Mr. Philpot continued to speak, turning to the citizens in attendance to make his plea directly to them.





To this day, the Lee County Commission refuses to allow citizen comments to be included in their meeting minutes or live streams. Citizens from across the county and surrounding areas must get out of work early to attend the meetings which start at 5 PM CST at the Lee County Courthouse if they wish to hear the concerns of their fellow citizens. Is it not time for the commission to unshackle the Great Lee County Firewall from upon its citizens?




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