Mayor silences critic at commission meeting

by Andrew Abramson ( Palm Beach Post Reporter )

It was a flashback to the Lois Frankel days at Monday’s commission meeting when former city cop William McCray pushed Mayor Jeri Muoio over the top and the mayor responded by silencing the critic.

Muoio

McCray

McCray, now a PBSO officer, won a racial discrimination suit against the city during Frankel’s term and continuously battled Frankel on the dais during her last year in office.

Frankel would point to the city’s civility code which says that speakers cannot direct public comment at specific individuals or commissioners. It’s a clause that even the League of Cities wouldn’t include in its push for a statewide civility code.

In Muoio’s early months in office, she often ignored the clause and let McCray rage against commissioners and herself. But in recent months, Muoio has become less patient with McCray.

Monday was already a tense meeting, with black residents storming out of the commission chambers and flipping over a portrait of Commissioner Keith James.

McCray opened his three minutes of public comment by blasting Frankel’s time in office, and Muoio shut off his mic and turned off the video feed.

Viewers were confused and curious, asking on Twitter and by e-mail what was being said between McCray and Muoio. It wasn’t much — Once the cameras were off, Muoio repeatedly told McCray, “You cannot come up here and say negative things about people,” while McCray shouted at Muoio several times, “You are out of order!”, saying he had a constitutional right to speak his mind at meetings. (Check out the Post’s May 1 story on this very subject).

Muoio eventually let McCray finish his speech, but without sound or video (and thereof no official public record of it). Once the three minutes were up, McCray complained that he was owed two minutes during the back-and-forth between he and Muoio. Police Chief Delsa Bush and another West Palm officer stood by McCray, and according to McCray, Bush told him he had to leave.

While Muoio was technically right that McCray was violating the city’s civility code (although he has said he shouldn’t have to abide by a civility code because it’s unconstitutional), he believes Muoio’s repeated suggestion that he can’t come up and “say negative things,” isn’t even what the civility code says. According to the code, a resident shouldn’t be able to direct any comment at an individual, negative or positive.

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