Bloomington Herald-Times, June 21, 2016
To the Editor:
The June 15 city council meeting was an embarrassment. Between 30 and 40 people showed up to remonstrate against the city’s funding of Planned Parenthood. As soon as they saw we were all there, Steve Volan immediately moved to limit comments from the public. Speakers were limited to two minutes, which is reasonable in order to give everyone a chance to speak.
What was not reasonable was limiting total public comment time to 40 minutes. At least six people were not allowed to speak, and more did not even get up to wait in line at all. If the city council does not want to listen to the public speak on an issue they are voting on that night, they are not qualified to lead this city and should resign.
Dorothy Granger, who brags on her campaign website that she is a volunteer clinic escort for Planned Parenthood, should have recused herself from the vote. It presents an appearance of impropriety for Planned Parenthood clinic escorts to be using their elected positions to funnel tax money to their organization.
The councilors did not even attempt to address the arguments presented. Their attitude was, "we will do what we want." Shameful.
Scott Tibbs.
