Conflict of Dog

Nick may have a point about not terminating civil servants for a refusal to perform your job, but educating them. Then, If they then don't perform appropriately, terminating them. Clearly, refusal to perform a non-political task for political reasons fits that description.

If the postman abstained from delivering my mail or the DMV employee abstained from processing my driver's license application, it would amount to the same thing.

None of the ABR members claimed that they were unable to render an objective decision, just that they (at least one) refused to because of the politics of the owner on Chick-Fil-A.

Having civil servants refuse services because they don't like the person that requests them clearly amounts to a limitation of freedom of speech.

Civil servants also have freedom of speech as individuals, but NOT in their capacity as civil servants. They should realize that.

This was and wasn't a brain fart. You've just got to get who is behind this local and hysterical right wing activism to energize the base before an election. If the bulbouts aren't out to get you it's the Muslims, homosexuals, Negroes, Mexicans, welfare queens, feminazis, homeless, unions, the literati, academia....

Angry Poodle so totally NAILED IT!
Santa Barbara will be well served by this record fully and correctly calling it correctly and revealing the hot tutus the elephants in the room were wearing.

And all the names are spelled correctly.

No, the Council did NOT get it right, except for Rouse, Francisco, and Hotchkiss. Free speech is as near an absolute (excepting the obvious 'fire in a theatre' cases) right as we have. Denying the free speech of those one disagrees with is a leftie tactic going back at least to the 60's (I was there; were you?). I can just imagine the scene if this happened because ChickFilA was taking a strong pro-LGTB stand - the left would go "batsh*t crazy" (ironically, Nick is allowed to use this word in its fullest spelling, but I am not - you're limiting my free speech there Nick). But Nick's position is hardly a surprise...

@JohnLocke

Freedom of speech isn't an absolute, it's just assumed to be most of the time. From the Constitution:

"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."

If you read the clause as "make no law...abridging the freedom of speech", then it *does* sound inviolable. However, taken in whole, the amendment is specifically political in intent--speech is not to be abridged, as relates to speaking out against the Government.

Btw, one also does NOT have any "freedom of speech" on a private web forum or comment thread, such as this one. Participants agree to follow such restrictions as placed by the Independent, which may include what they determine is offensive speech/text. "Sh!t" is an example of that.

Rowse, Hotchkiss and Francisco oughtta be recalled for purposefully misleading their constituencies and wasting city time to puff up their resumes. They know damn well C F-A had already been approved, was never in any danger of not being approved and the one abstension over political matters was symbolic only. No due process was ever delayed or denied. Shame on them!
And speaking of hypocrites, maybe Francisco who donated a nice sum to Prop. H8 should've recused himself from the proceedings. Of the three, he is the biggest embarassment to the community tho which of the three is the most dishonest is hard to say. Take away Hotchkiss' script and he's lost.

Good call Nick.

The Council majority did the right thing and the ABR members did the right thing by abstaining to protect the integrity of the process.

Seems the only free speech rights that were trampled were the ABR members, trampled by Rouse and Hotchkiss.

@Botany - Volunteer commissioners are not civil servants as they lack civil service protection, serve at the pleasure of their appointer, and are not paid.

Councilmembers, however, are paid by taxpayers. Disturbing to learn Hotchkiss has abstained several times, yet he felt he could question a commissioner for doing what he did. Makes his motives very obviously political.

The ABR members abstained because they could no longer be objective. That is real integrity.

Funny, the right wing kicked up a dirt storm then tried to accuse the ABR of getting dirty. Ironic

Huey, you are totally wrong on both counts. Zero for two!

Please name one ABR member that stated they abstained because he could not be objective! You can't, because there are none. Read the article. Even Mosel stated he abstained for political reasons, not because he couldn't be objective.

Also, just because they volunteer, doesn't absolve them from performing their responsibilities. They agree to serve the interests of the city when they took the position with the ABR. This doesn't mean they can decide when to perform their required tasks and when not to.

Their positions doesn't require them to give up their rights to free speech either. They are free to speak their mind as individuals, but not in the context of performing the duties they agreed to perform when they took their positiions with the ABR.

Who acres if they all abstained??? Has anyone else bothered to get the facts right? They could've torn up C F-A's paperwork and C F-A would've still opened! Much ado about NOTHING!

For those of us who actually were paying attention and observing this particular city council meeting, what got revealed quite well was the broad ambiguity, confusion, and contradictory directions that the ABR members have been given about when and why they should abstain from any vote. The smell test prevailed and was a directive to ABR from the city attorney many times during the past few years.

Despite all his voluminous huffing and puffing, very amateur and wannabe Constitutional scholar Dale Francisco failed to convince anyone but the preconvinced that his own self-serving legal definition of a conflict of interest was the only possible interpretation.

Of course, ambiguity in the ethics guidelines given repeatedly to the ABR "taste police" is not the raw, red meat that Francisco and Hotchkiss wanted to stake their reputations on by fomenting outrage with their dwindling political base of batchit crazy tea party supporters, who occupied much of the room that night with frequent heckling.

So what happened here was that the so-called conservatives on city council completely failed in their poorly-conceived proposal, further exposing themselves as grandstanding bloviators with a tinge of homophobia. Easily manipulated by Franciscan mind tricks, Randy Rowse just got himself in too deep and now is squarely allied with Francisco and Hotchkiss, a linkage that Rowse clearly regretted after his first lackluster sentence spoken during this item at the meeting.

Their ultra right tea-partian supporters were happy and outraged as usual, but the new city council Troika of Twisted Brothers made deeper enemies of "the gays" and their allies, which so far has been a fairly apathetic voting base like most of the lazy voting liberals.

Now, after a couple of years with Hotchkiss often truly reaching out and making a few friends with broader constituencies in Santa Barbara, where he has appreciated that a whole lot of people are really different from him and his gentrified supporters, Hotchkiss now has hardened himself again as a rightwing kook just a few months prior to when his 2013 reelection campaign should be ramping up.

Adding to the problems of the Hotchkiss Hypocricy Syndrome, as reminded to all by the mayor during this council meeting, is his own abstention last year from a prior council vote when he said then that he just does not like the nonprofit organization receiving the city funds. Perhaps that was his own form of political reason for abstaining?

In addition, the report in the Angry Poodle today revealed that Hotchkiss verbally advocated for a city council action about a street project while on the way out of the room because he had a legal conflict of interest on the same item that was promoted by his gentrified political base.

Flatulence notwithstanding, the Hotchkiss doth protest too much, methinks.

Principles, Ken, Principles. They could have opened without the required design changes as well. What you have here is a very slippery slope. This is a pattern of behavior that should not be allowed by our public servants.

Again, I'm not defending Chick-Fil-A, I'm defending free speech. What's going on in Chicago is a much more egregious example. We need to make sure that we do NOT supress free speech by following Chicago's example.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall...

Dearest Botany; Your profile indicates you sprouted at the exact moment that it was evident that Ms. Self lost her bid for re-election; so perhaps you and others don't recall council member Michael Kathleen Self.

Ms. Self was a council member, who should have known better, but she proceeded to participate and vote on a project in her neighborhood that had the potential to greatly increase her homes property value. Ms. Self was admonished by the Fair Politcal Practices Commission for doing so.

Evidence had been provided to the FPPC that Self had requested as a private citizen many years earlier nearly the exact same project. The project would benefit herself, her neighborhood association, her interior neighborhood friends at the expense of her lesser represented exterior neighbors. Ms. Self was made aware of this conflict prior to the meeting and vote.

So this is how you know that the actions, words and deeds by council members Rowse, Hotchkiss and Francisco are hypocritical at best and at worst a witch hunt, inquisition, farce, unfair and idiotically irresponsible. The trio didn't say anything, nothing at all about Ms. Selfs actions. There was never a letter demanding her resignation, no request for a hearing, no inquisition, ostensibly because the four are cut from the same silk.

The thing about the free speech that you lament and that I share is that there are consequences. Hopefully good consequences. It could be that the board members did not agree with the last minute changes. I am not too sure that there won't be impacts due to those changes that were administratively approved.

The ABR members perhaps felt similarly about the changes but perhaps felt that the perception of speaking negatively would have resulted in the similar reactions along with the nefarious accusations. And so they did as thought appropriate, they abstained. This is all in the context of the time and the provocative actions by the groups associated with the Chic-Fil-A corporate owner.

With these twisted right wing political operatives and organizations in our nation it appears that you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. So there are consequences of "free speech" and in this case it appears Chic-Fil-A may have learned something.

You busted me Don. I'm really Michael Self!

How was C F-A ever harmed? All that free publicity they keep getting?

And why does Steve Wiley get a free pass? He's the city attorney who counselled them to abstain in certain circumstances.

Here, Here!!! DO NOTHING!!!

It's only when we do something that the problems begin. (Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Vietnam, ect., ect.)

Thanks, equus_posteriori, for the unnecessary lecture on free speech. If you read my post carefully, you will see that I clearly said "Free speech is as near an absolute (excepting the obvious 'fire in a theatre' cases) right as we have".

To certain others: interesting to me that the name-calling herein seems to come from the lefties who have it in for Francisco, Rouse, and Hotchkiss. Might wanna stick to an objective discussion, folks. Just sayin...

Well there was no objectivity acknowledge by Rowse, Francisco and even less by Hotchkiss. The trio without saying it directly continue to express their conservative corporate dictatorial value that 'government run like a business.' This top down method of government is not of a representative democratic republic.

The alternative view is that government is not a business but rather representative. Government represents everyone, including the accused, including the accused board members.

Hotchkiss was especially mid-evil, patriarchal, inquisitional or corporate. As if he were King, pope, boss or daddy, Hotchkiss was demanding for repentance, again very corporate. But all three council members could not for a moment consider the heated circumstances, the other circumstances that left the board with a minimum of available members, the training received, the correct application of that training.

Council members Rowse, Francisco, Hotchkiss representing the conservative side of our politics hypocritically want a principled black and white world for their inquisitional purposes but conveniently want favors, compromise and slack for their own agenda, biases or 'conflicts of interests.' They've all three proven that on the dais many times.

Hmmm - a very animated discussion!

Couldn't we just agree that anyone who serves on a public commission, voluntary or otherwise, is expected to perform the duties that the position requires? Is that sooooo controversial? The ABR members are charged with rendering some sort of judgment regarding architectural esthetics. If they, by their own admission, can't do that job because it conflicts with their personal politics or finances, they should just resign or be let go. And how is it that anyone stating such an obviously reasonable position be characterized as "bat-sh*t crazy"?

Is the writer of this article a serious person? or just an entertainer out to push people's buttons?

Robert Ramey

I know, it's not as sexy or tasty to consider that these board members received widely contradictory direction on what is a conflict and when an abstention is appropriate.

Nor it is fun to admit that happened and was revealed many times during this city council discussion, nor to consider that this issue was a one-time occurrence.

That was a buffet of sexy John Adams.