EDITOR:

Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.

— Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1786.

The reporting of Ilsa Minor to the chaotic events that unfolded at the last Delta County Commission meeting has been extraordinary. My wife and I subscribe to the Daily Press as we firmly believe that without a local press the rights and freedoms afforded to us and enjoyed under the Constitution are at great risk.

A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.

— Sir Winston Churchill, 1949

I attended the Commission meeting on Tuesday and one the most disturbing aspects of that regrettable evening was Chairman Moyle’s angry repeated attempts to suppress the public’s reaction when he and two other board members (Robert Peterson and Robert Barron) fired Emily DeSalvo, our highly-respected and well-regarded county administrator. Ms. Minor captured the chilling moment when Moyle attempted to fabricate a crisis to regain control of the Chamber;

“Commissioner Moyle repeatedly interrupted the statement [DeSalvo’s] to threaten to remove audience members and to clear the room when the audience applauded the statement. He compared applause to ‘outbursts’ and repeatedly said the audience was ‘out of control.’

‘Listen, I haven’t heard anyone out of control right now, so I think people can just calmly listen to what’s being said,’ Sgt. Kurt Wilson, of the Delta County Sheriff’s Office, told Moyle when the commissioner called for the room to be cleared and for officers to bring individual speakers into the room one-by-one for final public comment… Throughout the course of the meeting, Moyle said he would use a police escort to remove an audience member or for the room to be cleared entirely nine times, repeatedly for applause and often for comments made at whisper-level volume. No one was removed from the meeting room by an officer at any point…”

Chairman Moyle’s attempts to subjugate constitutionally protected rights of free speech and assembly to his will cannot be excused and should not be forgotten. The “decorum” that Moyle claims was lost could have been reaffirmed with his gavel and the words, repeated as necessary, “Order, order, order” or he simply could have recognized the will of the people and waited a few moments for the standing ovation and applause in support of Emily to pass.

I offer my sincere thanks to the fine reporting by the Daily Press to bear witness to a distressing situation and extend my gratitude to the four sheriff’s deputies for their service to keep the peace and remain true to their oath to serve and protect the citizens of Delta County under the Constitution.

The quotes used here are from a Michigan Press Association amicus brief the Michigan Supreme Court used as the basis for a 2020 decision (Bisio v. City of the Village of Clarkson) to expanded assurance of government transparency under the Freedom of Information Act.

Joe Kaplan

Ford River Township