Three signs that included information about the Birmingham City Council’s public-speaker policy were on display Tuesday outside the council’s chambers. That’s notable because councilors have made conflicting statements about the policy recently, and police officers forcibly removed a would-be speaker from council chambers last week.
“What they did to me is atrocious,” said Terri Michal, a former Birmingham Board of Education member who attempted to speak. “I had been given no command or orders. I was not belligerent. I was not out of line. They called my name, and yet I can be drug out by the cops? There's a huge problem here.”
During the public-speaker portion of the June 23 council meeting, a city official called Michal’s name, but council President Wardine Alexander stopped her about 10 feet short of the podium. Alexander told Michal, who had spoken the previous week about the city’s controversial new data-center regulations, that she couldn’t speak at consecutive meetings.
The two then engaged in discussion about the speaker policy and different statements councilors had made about it at previous meetings. While that was happening, two officers surrounded Michal and eventually removed her from the room. Michal said no one told her to retake her seat or leave.
"The people have a right to speak," Michal exclaimed as officers pulled her to the door.
During a May 26 city council meeting, Councilor Darrell O’Quinn told Michal “public speakers can’t speak on the same topic week after week.” The city’s written code, in a section on communication with the council, says “no person shall be allowed to address the City Council at two consecutive meetings unless granted by the City Council.”
Based on O’Quinn’s comment, Michal said she planned to speak on a different subject – public trust – last week. Michal has been a vocal critic of the data-center ordinance the council approved June 9 and of a massive facility under construction in the city’s Oxmoor Valley neighborhood that won’t have to follow those rules due to the timing of its project permit. She also has joined a class-action suit seeking an end to the project.
Michal connected her criticism to the council’s refusal to allow her to speak.
“You're intimidating and harassing people based on their viewpoints, and that's against the law, and it's compromising our First Amendment rights,” she said. “I think that it pretty much is sending a signal to anybody that we can drag you out if we don't like what you're saying.”
A city council spokesperson said the city had no comment on the allegations due to pending litigation. Michal said she is not suing at this time. Her attorney did send city officials a letter she says is meant to warn that litigation is possible if similar actions continue.
In response to a question about whether the council would clarify its public-speaker policy, the council wrote in a statement on Monday: “We believe that our ordinance is clear and it has been readily accessible to all citizens prior to last week.”
According to an email dated June 24 from a council public information officer to council members, a new notice near the speaker sign-up table outside the council chambers and an updated sign-up sheet would spell out parts of the city’s code regarding speakers. The email said the goal is to make the policy abundantly clear and readily available to the public. It also outlined the public-speaker rules for the councilors’ reference.
The signs posted on the wall behind the speaker sign-up table on Tuesday detail a section of city code on “Order of Business,” including rules for members of the public who wish to address the council.
Those rules are:
- All persons addressing specific agenda items that are not designated public hearings shall be granted 3 minutes to speak following City Council presentations; and
- Persons addressing issues of general concern shall be granted 3 minutes to speak immediately before old and new business. Speakers must sign the speakers list by 9:30 a.m. and cannot address the City Council at two consecutive meetings.
Michal said she couldn’t be at this week’s city council meeting but plans to attend and speak at all those she can.
“Knowing what the policy is, I will not speak every Tuesday, but still I want our community, our citizens – I want them to get more engaged and understand how all of this works, how our government works,” she said.
She said she doesn’t want her main message to be lost. That message is that council members said they would amend the data-center ordinance, which Michal calls weak, and residents need to pressure them to do that.
Rick Journey, a spokesperson for Mayor Randall Woodfin’s office, said Tuesday that since the council approved regulations less than a month ago, he doesn’t know if or when it will amend them. After a public hearing on draft regulations in April, city staff recommended changes, and the council approved an updated draft with those revisions, despite opposition from the public at a second hearing.
“You can revise an ordinance anytime,” Journey said. “But I think that they just went through and they did all the revisions. I think they've done everything they wanted to do.”
