{"id":14097,"date":"2012-04-19T14:40:04","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14097"},"modified":"2012-04-19T14:40:04","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:40:04","slug":"attendee-escorted-from-meeting-files-complaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14097","title":{"rendered":"Attendee Escorted From Meeting Files Complaint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa businessman, Joe Robinson<\/strong>, has been an outspoken critic of the Hillsborough County School District\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

In a School Board meeting last Tuesday, Robinson<\/strong> was given his three minutes to speak, and told the board members, \u201cmismanagement, misfeasance, malfeasance, that\u2019s what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, when Robinson<\/strong> told the Board members, \u201cthree, five, seven, vote them out, School board chair, Candy Olson<\/strong>, ordered him to stop, accusing him of political campaigning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went there to discuss operational mismanagement, and was accused of political campaigning. Two weeks ago, I asked them to define what is political speech? That\u2019s when I discovered they have no policy on what is or isn\u2019t political speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson<\/strong> said he has documented evidence that there are no guidelines, policies or tools regarding political speech<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, how can I be stopped from addressing the Board because of a policy that doesn\u2019t exist? \u201cI feel my first amendment rights were violated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson<\/strong> said the Board\u2019s attorney cited a 2009 case out of Boca Raton where someone wore a political button, and another person wore a political tee-shirt while addressing the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not make a political statement, and I was not campaigning for anyone. I never mentioned any candidates\u2019 name.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if they have case law, they have not adopted any policy on political speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson<\/strong> said he was contacted by a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who said they were in the meeting last Tuesday, and they wanted a copy of what was sent to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy plan is to file a complaint with the NAACP for violation of my first amendment rights. I have also filed a battery complaint against the men who escorted me out of the meeting.<\/p>\n

Robinson<\/strong> said school board spokesperson, Linda Cobbe<\/strong>, sent him an e-mail and said they do have a policy for political activity. Also, spokesperson, Steve Hegarty<\/strong>, said Robinson<\/strong> had been warned about promoting political activity at the board meetings, and that we had a policy against it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always let people know you can\u2019t promote candidates at our meetings. That is a part of our policy. Also, our civility police may have been violated. We can invoke that just to restore order.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read the information Cobbe<\/strong> sent me and I don\u2019t think it covers what happened during that meeting. The County by-law, 32-32, applies only to employees, and is protected by Florida Statute 104.31. They don\u2019t have a policy for anyone who isn\u2019t an employee.\u201d
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robinson<\/strong> said he also feels he\u2019s been conspired against because of the numerous complaints he\u2019s made to the Board about its operational procedures.<\/p>\n

Reporter Leon B. Crews can be reached at (813) 248-0724, or e-mailed at lcrews@flsentinel.com.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tampa businessman, Joe Robinson, has been an outspoken critic of the Hillsborough County School District\u2019s actions. In a School Board meeting last Tuesday, Robinson was given his three minutes to speak, and told the board members, \u201cmismanagement, misfeasance, malfeasance, that\u2019s what you\u2019re doing.\u201d But, when Robinson told the Board members, \u201cthree, five, seven, vote them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}