A notice of claim has been filed against the Gilbert mayor and town council, alleging that Mayor Brigette Peterson violated three residents’ First Amendment rights when she ejected them from a Sept. 20 council meeting.
The three residents are Brandon Ryff, Ryan Handelsman and Joanne Terry. A notice of claim can be a precursor to a lawsuit.
The claim includes an offer to settle for $1, “provided that the mayor and the town of Gilbert issue an official apology and the mayor agrees to take remedial First Amendment training classes, so that she may be informed of the importance of the First Amendment and what actions a municipal mayor can take, and under what circumstances, during a meeting, and what actions would constitute a First Amendment violation.”
Ryff, Handelsman and Terry were ejected from the Sept. 20 meeting near the end of the “communications from citizens” portion of the meeting. Each was holding up a sign that read, “Stop Lying.”
That meeting had drawn a larger than usual crowd, and the “Stop Lying” signs and others that said, “Don’t Mesa my Gilbert” were distributed outside the Public Safety Training Facility, which audience members brought into the facility’s Atlas Auditorium, site of the council meeting.
Handelsman was among the speakers from the public critical of a light-industrial project along Power Road near the Morrison Ranch residential development called “The Ranch.” Others criticized the town’s plans to widen Ocotillo Road.
With the presence of the signs and having just come through a few previous contentious meetings, Vice Mayor Aimee Yentes went over the rules for public comment, including an admonition not to applaud, and noted the presence of the signs.
“I know there were some people who had signs,” she said at the meeting. “If you could not wave your signs during the meeting. It was fine. I walked through. I saw some outside the public building. That was fine, but if we could refrain from using the signs on the inside.”
After the first speaker, applause broke out and Peterson gaveled for order and asked that a woman who raised her sign have it removed.
According to the claim, that sign was in the possession of Terry. She then put the sign down and police did not confiscate it, according to the claim.
When Handelsman spoke, he prefaced his comments about the Ranch project by noting that he did not think there was any code or statute that would prevent silently holding up signs and that it seemed like council was trying to infringe on the residents’ First Amendment rights.
“Because there was no published rule, code or law prohibiting a person from silently holding a sign, Dr. Ryff, Mr. Handelsman and Ms. Terry each decided to silently and without motion, hold their signs,” the claim states. “The mayor halted the meeting and ordered the police to remove Dr. Ryff, Mr. Handelsman and Ms. Terry from the room. The police escorted them out of the meeting without incident.”
The claim from the plaintiffs’ attorney, Timothy Lasota, asserts that the mayor was retaliating against Ryff for previous statements he had made to council that the mayor “struggles with the truth” and against Handelsman for his statements at the meeting.
It also contends that the mayor chose to eject the trio based on the content of their signs, in violation of the Reed v. Town of Gilbert case, which found that restrictions must be content neutral. The claim notes that a person who had propped up his “Don’t Mesa my Gilbert” sign was not targeted for removal.
Lasota said by email Thursday afternoon that the claim had been emailed to each of the council members but that “would not constitute actual service under the notice of claim statute.” He said service was in process.
Town spokesperson Jennifer Harrison said the claim is under review.
Previously, resident Teresa Naddy filed a Code of Ethics complaint with the town of Gilbert and completed an intake questionnaire with the Civil Right Division of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office stemming from the ejections at the Sept. 20 meeting.
Tom Blodgett Senior News Editor | Gilbert @sp_blodgett
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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