Comment on Recent Work Session Public Comment from Toby JonesAimee Brunckhorst
From: tobyjones406 <tobyjones406@proton mail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2021 10:31 PM
To: Kalispell Meetings Public Comment
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comment on recent Work Session
Hello,
My name is Toby Jones, I live at412 3rd Ave E in Kalispell. I wanted to share my comments with the council after
watching the meeting from February 22nd. I am surprised at the majority of council not understanding how social media
works. It isn't that new, and at this point is very mainstream. The owner of a public facebook page is responsible for
their posts, but not for the comments on their post. The commenters are responsible for their comments, just like they
would be on a radio interview with people calling in or in a meeting setting. Are you responsible for comments from the
public when they are physically at the meeting since the meeting is held by the council? If a Jewish Synagogue has a
facebook page to share information with the public and makes a post saying Happy Passover, and a nazi comments to
kill all the Jews is the Jewish Synagogue responsible for that comment? According to Tim Kluesner the synagogue is the
publisher so they are responsible, and they should just delete the page. That way the heckler's veto wins, and pretty
much every social media page in existence would need to be deleted. That is an asinine argument, and makes no sense.
Of course pretty much all of Tim Kluesner's arguments made no sense:
Don't talk about social media, you don't have any idea what you are talking about. You sound like Al Gore talking about
the internet and tubes.
Referring to a proposal as the primary sponsor's proposal is not an insult to the staff who helped to make it possible, it is
normal business in local politics. No one thought he was taking credit for every aspect of the proposal, and you're fake
outrage is ridiculous.
You are mad that he interviewed Joe Russell because you have questions you want to ask him? What is stopping you?
Does Joe have a one interview per year rule and Ryan took the spot? Have you invited Joe to come to council to answer
questions and he refused because he already spoke to Ryan? Have you called Joe to do an interview yourself to share
with the public? Or do you have a strict no sharing with the public rule?
Social media is not going anywhere, and you ignore it at your peril. Instead of demanding council members remove their
pages, you should in fact be creating your own pages and putting the facts as you see them out there. Don't like the way
Ryan summarized a meeting, or want to explain why you voted a certain way, put it out for the citizens of Kalispell to see
it. And like any social media post, be ready for people to make stupid comments, mean comments, disgusting
comments. That is the internet, grow up.
Other than the obvious misunderstanding of social media, to anyone paying attention this is an obvious attack on Ryan
Hunter because he won't go along with business as usual. He has a different agenda than the majority of the council and
most of it I disagree with, but guess what, he was clear about the agenda when he ran and beat the incumbent. He is
doing what the people that voted for him asked him to do. He loses most of his votes, so it's not like he is radically
effecting the policies of the council currently. What he is doing is informing people who don't watch public access TV on
what the council is doing, and how they are voting and that obviously has struck a nerve with a lot of the council. It's
funny to me that the council says that social media accounts could constitute discussion outside of the public forum and
could persuade councilors while at the same time they just had a switch from a 7-2 favorable vote to a 5-4 against vote
without any public discussion between. And then Sandy Carlson makes the point that there is no rule that says she has
to say why she has voted the way she has. She is right, there is no rule, but it is not uncommon for local officials to
explain to their constituents how they came to a decision, especially when that decision changed without any obvious
reason. If she chooses not to explain her decision that is her right, just as it is Ryan Hunter's right to explain his decisions
and reasons for voting, and to point out that he tried to get the proposal through. If there is an issue I am concerned
about, and it gets voted down, I want to know who voted against it so I can ask them why.
One quick google search for Montana State Legislature and facebook came up with many local politician's facebook
pages:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Pu bl ic-Figure/Jeded is h-Hinkle-Montana-Legislature-734235969941437/
https://www.facebook.com/popeformontanas
https://www.facebook.com/BarrVUsherforMo na/
Those are a handful that came up on the first page of google. These are not federal politicians, they are local Montana
politicians who are under state guidelines. Take a look at those pages, the posts on them and the comments. There are
opinions posted all over the place, comments for and against with profanity and name calling. This is the world we live
in, and it is a reality in our state now. Not in the future, now. Quit trying to dodge transparency, realize things have
changed, and step up to the plate. If you aren't ready to do that follow the Mayor's example, quit running and let
someone else govern. Thank you,
Toby Jones
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