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If a life goal was to be led out of the Morristown City Council Chambers in handcuffs, then ‘Tony’ should be held high in esteem among his peers today.

His refusal to give his last name or address, more than once after being asked to do so by Mayor Gary Chesney, during Tuesday’s regularly scheduled gathering of the council precipitated Morristown Police Chief Roger Overholt’s quick rise from the row of benches near the back wall of Chambers.

Some discussion – quiet words from the uniformed voice accompanied by loud exclamations from the civilian voice – took place at the podium from which public comments are directed to council with regard to specific agenda items.

His enthusiastic order, along the lines of “Don’t touch me!” was efficiently and effectively ignored.

The ensuing escort of the gentleman by several MPD officers progressed through the double doors that serve as both entrance, and exit, for the general public.

The measure was taken because, as Overholt explained in an address to the gallery, the gentleman had disrupted a City Council meeting.

The fact that this gentleman could have, just by stating his full name and address, waxed poetic from the mic for three minutes about his right to wax poetic from the mic seemed a bit poignant in retrospect. Chesney noted later that this was the first time he had witnessed this situation in a council meeting.

Several of those who typically step up to the mic during public hearings attached to the ordinances presented to council warned of the ensuing loss of the right to wax poetic due to a much-discussed 4 to 3 vote by the council to move the non-agenda related public comments portion of the meeting out of Chambers and into the training room located across the rotunda. The room is regularly utilized for council pre-agenda work sessions. Council members Chris Bivens, Bob Garrett and Kay Senter voted no on the ordinance.

Ordinance 4729 was discussed during the Dec. 6 pre-agenda work session in preparation for its first reading and passing vote that evening, introduced by Chesney as an agenda adoption and described by him as “how we want to structure the agenda.”

On Dec. 6, Chesney referred to the fact that City Administrator Tony Cox had talked to government officials in other cities and received recommendations from the Tennessee Municipal League with regard to the proposed agenda change.

“The ordinance before you does two things. It adds Item 5, ‘adoption of the agenda,’” Cox said. “That is the point where council will formally approve the proposed agenda that has been distributed and at that point … you may debate adding or moving items based on the consensus of the group. That is a more formal following of parliamentary procedures as they are in Robert’s Rules. The other thing that is included as a change in the order of business is the removing the comments that you are talking about that are not related to items on the agenda; you’ll remove that from the formal meeting and allow that to them to be taken care of at a different time.”

Chesney added, “Folks that want to address council about a topic, council will be here to be addressed. It doesn’t eliminate that opportunity. It puts it at a different point in time when the council is here.”

Council members Al A’Hearn, Tommy Pedigo and Senter, along with Chesney, discussed their preferences that the non-agenda public comments be recorded.

“I agree, we need to document all comments from citizens. And each document ought to be considered and referred to somebody in city administration or whatever part of the city it pertains to. If there is in fact (an issue) – if it is not just a rhetorical comment,” A’Hearn said.

Cox addressed the rhetorical comments, a familiar occurrence to those who follow Morristown or Hamblen County government proceedings.

“Prior to coming here, my practice was when someone came to the podium in a council meeting and had a concern, I would draft a letter to them within the following week indicating ‘here is the status of your concern – you’re worried about a stop sign in this intersection; here is where we’re going; here is what we’re going to do; here is the process moving forward,’” Cox said. “When I came to Morristown, I found that the people at the podium rarely were coming with things that were of that nature, where ‘I have a concern about a stop sign or animals in my neighborhood,’ or those sorts of things. It was much more of a political statement and sort of posturing. I dropped that (practice), because I couldn’t respond to those complaints, because it wasn’t the business of the community moving forward. I think that’s the problem we’ve got here. The citizens’ communications are not the kinds of things that we are talking about: ‘I’ve got a concern about a stop sign, speeding vehicles.’ I think we’re getting those comments through other avenues and addressing them that way.”

On Dec. 20, Ordinance 4729 was brought before council on for its second reading and public hearing. There was a motion made by Bivens to defer to the Jan. 3 meeting, with a second by Ken Smith. A request by Senter to move the deferment to the Jan. 17 meeting was denied.

“I would like to move it to the second meeting in January, if we are going to defer it, so we would have a chance to talk about how we’re going to address those public comments,” Senter said.

Chesney replied, “That’s an entirely separate matter; that’s not connected to this at all.”

In the Jan. 3 pre-agenda work session, Senter proposed a work session to be held at a later date regarding the non-agenda public comments. She told council members she had requested and received information from the city of Farragut – “They have what they call a citizen forum. And they also have what they call protocols. I think it would be beneficial to all of us to look at what other people are doing,” Senter said.

Chesney replied, “Of course, that doesn’t have anything to do with changing our agenda, but if you want to discuss how we’re going to do it eventually, I don’t have any problem with that.”

Cox commented that there would be a workshop on the subject scheduled for Jan. 17.

During Tuesday’s Council meeting, Senter questioned the deferment of Dec. 20.

“What was the purpose of deferring it for two weeks? There had to be a reason to defer it. It was an aimless act, if we deferred it; we haven’t talked about it anymore, nobody brought up anything that had been accomplished, new, on this in the ‘pre-agenda’ meeting,” she said.

During the portion of the agenda reserved for the Mayor’s comments, Chesney reiterated his previous statements that public comments were not being eliminated.

“We’re also not removing council members from hearing comments that you may have,” Chesney said. “We’re removing them off of this agenda and into another room where we will have speakers and podiums and a full section of the … The pre-agenda meeting will abruptly end when the public comments section begins, that’s what our intent is.

“Some have turned it (Ordinance 4729) into some kind of anti-patriotic issue. And I’ve lived here for – this May, it will be 50 years that I’ve lived here – and I’ve never seen anyone have to be removed from Council Chambers and it saddens and I regret that that occurred. And maybe that’s what the individual hoped to have happen. That is the first time I’ve ever seen that happen at a city council meeting and I regret that happened, but we have to maintain order. We have a procedure that is for speaking that is fair to everybody and everybody is treated the same and that is the intent.”

He then introduced the non-agenda public comments portion of the meeting.

“This the portion where anybody can speak on any topic they want to talk about, that they believe the council needs to hear. And you have three minutes. Please identify yourself by name and address and the floor is now open.”