In less than two weeks, a Little Rock man will have his day in court on his claim that Mayor Mark Stodola violated his First Amendment rights by denying his request to speak publicly at a city board meeting in January 2015.
The nonjury trial stemming from Luke Skrable's federal lawsuit was set to begin Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth Deere, but it was pulled off the court calendar Thursday after a request from Skrable's attorney, Ed Adcock of Little Rock.
Adcock, who recently suffered a heart attack, cited renewed chest pains that he wants to have checked out by his cardiologist before the trial begins.
Although U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. made several pretrial rulings and originally was expected to oversee a trial stemming from the lawsuit, the parties agreed months ago to let Deere decide the case in a bench trial that is expected to last two days. She has rescheduled the trial to begin at 9 a.m. July 17 in her Little Rock courtroom.
Until the Jan. 20, 2015, board meeting that is the focus of the lawsuit, Skrable was a regular outspoken attendee at city board meetings, having aired his opinions at least 78 times. But he has been banned from city buildings since Jan. 26, 2015, for sending an email later in the night of the meeting to City Manager Bruce Moore.
The email complained about being denied permission to speak and being escorted out of the meeting by police after angrily slapping the lectern. In it, Skrable said, among other things, "Your days are numbered," which he later said meant only that Moore's days as city manager were numbered.
Skrable also had left a voice mail in September 2014 with the Public Works Department that said in part, "Someone's going to be bleeding," which he later said meant only that somebody's wallet would be bleeding.
Moore cited both communications in banning Skrable from entering city buildings "until further notice."
In July 2015, Skrable was convicted in Pulaski County District Court of two misdemeanor counts of terroristic threatening in connection with the email and the voice mail. Skrable appealed, and the convictions were upheld in January 2016 in Pulaski County Circuit Court, leaving intact a one-year probated sentence that hadn't taken effect during the appeal, a $300 fine and orders that Skrable have no contact with Moore and Sue Halsey of Public Works.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza also said Skrable must continue to comply with the city-imposed ban, which the city then extended until Jan. 6 of this year -- the point at which Skrable's delayed probation was expected to be completed.
Earlier this year, after completing his probation, Skrable asked that the ban on him entering city buildings without an invitation be lifted. Moore denied the request for at least another year, citing the seriousness of the threats.
One member of the city Board of Directors, Erma Hendrix, made a motion at a March meeting to lift the ban, but the motion was never seconded.
Meanwhile, Deere denied the city's request to throw out the still-pending lawsuit that Skrable had filed in August 2015 alleging his constitutional rights were violated when he was prevented from addressing the board during the citizen communication part of the Jan. 20, 2015, city board meeting. Deere cited an unresolved dispute about what was said between Stodola and Skrable during a break in the meeting.
Stodola has said Skrable told him during a break in the meeting that he wanted to discuss ditch issues in Skrable's Merrivale neighborhood, but that he denied the request because the ditch issues had already been addressed at a meeting two weeks earlier. Skrable contends he told Stodola that he wanted to talk about why the city hadn't responded to his Freedom of Information Act requests about the ditches, and that he wanted to discuss a new subject: an apology from Stodola for misrepresenting Skrable's position on the ditches.
The board allows three minutes "to present a specific item which has not previously been brought to the attention of the Board by the speaker and is not already on the Agenda."
In a pretrial filing, City Attorney Tom Carpenter argued on behalf of Stodola, Moore and the city, all of whom are defendants in the case, that "the meeting of the governing body of a municipal government is not a traditional public forum under 1st Amendment analysis and the Court should consider the purpose for which the forum is created when it determines whether restrictions can be imposed consistently with the 1st Amendment."
Adcock wrote, "Stodola's motivation for restricting [Skrable's] speech ... was to stifle the particular opinion and perspective [Skrable] sought to address that evening." He argued that "Skrable's proposed speech was consistent with the limited purpose of the meeting and, hence, could not be denied solely because of its content even if the meeting was deemed to be a limited public forum."
Adcock argued that Stodola's interference with Skrable's comments wasn't "content neutral," but was designed to keep Skrable from criticizing him personally.
Metro on 07/04/2017