chanel
Silver Member
Deprived of the opportunity to speak to a City Council committee about its plan to hire a $30,000 state lobbyist, Darlene Heslop apparently could not contain herself. She sighed and rolled her eyes and was promptly ejected from the June 14 meeting. Surely nobody expects the committee to conduct its business effectively if citizens are free to make facial expressions in public. (Can you hear our eyes rolling?)
"Making faces behind the mayor's back is disruptive, in my opinion," said committee chairman Stephen Hipskind, who told Heslop to leave. (Wait the mayor didn't even see it? Facepalm.) Other aldermen objected to the eviction, and two of them got up and left, ending the meeting for lack of a quorum. (Silent applause.)
Now the city attorney has been directed to research the legal definitions of disorderly conduct and disruptive behavior (we're shaking our heads here), with an eye to drafting an ordinance to curb non-verbal outbursts. His work should begin and end with state law, which defines disorderly conduct as "an act in such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another, or to provoke a breach of the peace."
Elmhurst; eye-rolling ordinance - chicagotribune.com
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