My dear friend Shaun Kenney, who is a member of the Fluvanna BOS, was the sole dissenting vote -
The owner of The Fluco Blog, a Fluvanna County-based news site, has filed a lawsuit over an ordinance limiting the use of the official Fluvanna County seal.
Bryan Rothamel is accusing the county of violating the First and 14th Amendments by adopting the ordinance, which allows use of the seal only with permission from the Board of Supervisors. Under the county code, a violation of the ordinance is a Class 1 misdemeanor, which carries a maximum sentence of 12 months in jail and/or a fine of up to $2,500. [link]
It seems that Mr. Rothamel irritated the BOS with one of his blog posts criticizing their actions (I'm not sure which post yet, but here's a link to the Board of Supervisors category), and they have retaliated in a truly petty and childlike manner -
The motion for the ordinance was adopted 4-1 after a Sept. 15 public hearing during which Rothamel asked about fair use of the seal during news reporting, according to the meeting minutes. Shaun V. Kenney, the vice chairman of the board, voted against the ordinance. He said that he thinks the ordinance was a “remedial action” against the blogger for writing something that a supervisor didn’t agree with.
“This seems like a simple First Amendment, slam dunk, common sense situation,” Kenney said. “I’m still appalled, with all of the other issues facing us in Fluvanna County, that somehow we chose to focus on this.”
Hey, Fluvanna BOS members? I'm going to join up in support of Fluco Blog's First Amendment rights and imitate my blog-brother JR Hoeft at Bearing Drift:
First Amendment rights: NOT just for governmental toadies!
Good for you! Keep at them!
Just thought I'd check in on an old friend....
Stop by some time at UCV. I'm also giving the bloggers at Moonhowlings the benefit of my comments quite frequently....
I'm right. Just ask me...
Posted by: Cargosquid | January 23, 2011 at 05:00 PM