Free Speech

SYRACUSE — A motion to remove a member of the city’s planning commission for comments he made on social media attacking the city attorney and then the city recorder, died for lack of a second Tuesday, spurring public discussion among council members about the role of free speech.

Mayor Jamie Nagle placed on the agenda a motion to remove Planning Commissioner Gary Pratt for his public role following Facebook posts made in November about City Attorney Will Carlson and City Recorder Cassie Brown.

The post about Carlson included a link to an interview Carlson did with CNN about gay rights. The comment on Brown suggested she would delete any potentially negative statements from Nagle from the minutes.

BRIGHAM CITY — The city council here has tossed the free-speech zone ordinance that became so troublesome after a lawsuit by a local church and the American Civil Liberties Association.

The council on Thursday agreed unanimously to repeal the ordinance that limited protest areas to certain blocks around the new Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple on Brigham City’s Main Street.

Mayor Dennis Fife said the repeal was not because of fears the protest-restricting law was unconstitutional.

BRIGHAM CITY — As the fourth and final week of public tours of the new Brigham City LDS Temple winds down, the “pamphleteers” handing out literature questioning the church noted fewer police visits enforcing the “free speech zone” they inhabit.

The police visits had dropped off steadily since the tours that began Aug. 18. And they weren’t the reason for the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah calling the free speech zones unconstitutional.

The first police visit came Aug. 18, said Jim Catlin, pastor of the Main Street Church conducting the “protest,” as the free speech zone ordinance defines the effort the church calls “outreach.”

BRIGHAM CITY — Officials in Brigham City agreed Thursday not to enforce the city’s Free Speech Zone Ordinance being challenged in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah on behalf of Main Street Church of Brigham.

NORTH OGDEN — City Councilman Brent Taylor feels his free speech rights are being violated by having to abide by the city’s media policy that was initiated while he was deployed in Afghanistan.

He asked the city council to consider changing it a bit, but the rest of the council doesn’t agree with Taylor.

LAYTON — Patrons of the Chick-fil-A restaurant were surprised during the noon hour Wednesday that, despite the huge crowds, it only took about 10 minutes to get up to the counter to order their food. So many people were there to order chicken sandwiches that cars were waiting along the curb on Antelope Drive and in a mall thoroughfare just to get into one of two drive-thru lines.

Those who wanted to go inside either had to wait several minutes in the drive-thru traffic to get into the parking lot or park at nearby businesses and walk through the long lines of cars surrounding the building.

Then, once at the business, patrons had to wait in a line that snaked outside the building several feet to the corner of the business.