I didn’t plan on taking so long to provide editorial commentary after the City of Rotan’s revised public comment rules, and I apologize. When I read Rotan’s new policy, I immediately realized the discovery of a political valve that allows citizens in and keeps criticism out. Last month, the Rotan City Council adopted new procedures for residents who want to speak at meetings. On the surface, it looks harmless enough. Three minutes at the mic. A sign-up sheet before the meeting. The sharing of addresses and phone numbers for residence verification and potential follow up. A few rules about language so we all mind our manners.
That’s the sales pitch, anyway. The reality is that local governments across Texas are in a season of streamlining public input, and Rotan is simply following the trend. Let’s take a look through the microscope at where efficacy ends and censorship begins.
Start with the sign-up sheet. Anyone who wants to address the council now has to list their name, address, and phone number before the meeting. The administration says this information is just for internal use — to verify that speakers live in the service area and to contact them later if needed. Reassurances were also made that the information wouldn’t be made public.
That sounds comforting, right up until you remember we live in Texas, where many of the strongest transparency laws originated.
Under the Texas Public Information Act, anything a city writes down and keeps as part of its official business is presumptively public. That includes comment cards, complaint forms, and yes, sign-up sheets. If it’s created and maintained as part of the meeting record, it can be requested. The city doesn’t have the power to ignore that away with a friendly disclaimer.
What we’ve got here is a form that quietly collects phone numbers and addresses, and a promise about privacy the law doesn’t actually support. That’s not just a legal problem. It’s a trust problem. You can’t tell people, “we won’t share this,” while the statute in the law books says, “yes, you will.”
Then there’s the question of who gets to speak. To the city’s credit, the policy says anyone served by Rotan utilities is eligible to address the council. That’s broader than “city residents only,” and in a small system it probably covers most folks affected by the city’s decisions in their water bill and trash pickup.
But notice the shift in posture. Here, public comment is framed not as a constitutional right to petition those in power, but as a courtesy extended to customers within the city’s service area. In other words: you get a voice because you pay us, not because you are a citizen.
The Texas Constitution doesn’t read that way. Article I, Section 27 says citizens have the right, in a peaceable manner, to assemble for their common good and to apply to those in government “for redress of grievances or other purposes, by petition, address or remonstrance.” It doesn’t say, “provided you are current on your utility bill.”
Eligibility and time limits are the easy parts though. The real trouble is embedded in the language… or in this case, the censorship of it.
Rotan’s new guidelines ban “vulgar, profane, inflammatory, or defamatory language.” They also ban “slanderous or personal belittling language.” The intent, we’re told, is to promote the orderly conduct of business and make procedures clear for anyone who comes before the council.
That’s a fine goal. No one wants a meeting to dissolve into a shouting match. It’s not a Fisher County Commissioners Court meeting after all.
But there is a world of difference between asking people not to scream obscenities in council chambers and empowering the presiding officer to decide, on the fly, what counts as “inflammatory” or “personal belittling.”
That’s not order. That’s taste, and it’s a damned important distinction to make.
In Cohen v. California (1971), Justice John Marshall Harlan II reasoned that “while the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” Harlan went on to write that “governments might soon seize upon the censorship of particular words as a convenient guise for banning the expression of unpopular views.”
The Texas Open Meetings Act recognizes this distinction. Section 551.007 doesn’t just require local bodies to let the public speak on agenda items. It also draws a line: a governmental body may not prohibit public criticism of the body, including criticism of any act, omission, policy, procedure, program, or service, except where some other law already forbids the speech.
Put simply: you can limit the clock. You can’t limit the viewpoint, even a four-letter one.
That means a Rotan resident has every right to stand at the podium and say the council’s decisions are short-sighted, unfair, reckless, or cowardly. They can say the city failed them, harmed them, or ignored them. They can name names, so long as they aren’t flinging knowingly false accusations of criminal conduct.
Will that feel “personal” to the person in the big chair? Of course. Welcome to being on the receiving end of accountability.
The new rules, as adopted, create a ready-made temptation to treat sharp criticism as a decorum violation. You don’t have to ban dissent if you can simply gavel it down as “belittling.”
Layer on the sign-up sheet — with its unlikely promise of confidentiality — and you’ve built a system where citizens must first present their contact information, then hope their words don’t cross an invisible line between “firm” and “inflammatory,” depending on how the podium hears it in the moment.
That’s not democracy. That’s discourse with the convenience of a mute button.
None of this means Rotan shouldn’t have rules. Expecting basic civility makes sense. What doesn’t is pretending the public’s right to criticize its government is a leash that can be tightened or loosen depending on the length of the agenda or how well citizens kiss the ring.
On this side of the gavel, we have few options: We can vote, we can assemble, and we can speak. However, if the microphone becomes more of a filter than a funnel, then what becomes amplified is the intolerance for what is said.