To the editor:

My first takeaway when I read the Sept. 7 article on the decision of City Commissioner Amber Sellers to participate remotely during the public comment portion of future City Commission meetings due to the dangerous and disruptive behavior and attacks she has experienced at recent meetings concerned the other city commissioners not responding when these incidents take place. The Journal-World story stated, “Commissioners do not traditionally speak” during the public comment period. Which means on occasion they do speak.

My question thus became why were the other members of the City Commission not speaking up publicly when a colleague was being verbally and racially attacked — as Mayor Bart Littlejohn has also been by members of the public. Does the public have greater First Amendment rights than city commissioners? Do city commissioners need to just “take it” when being racially humiliated in such a fashion? That they don’t come to a public defense of Sellers and the mayor at the time of the verbal attack doesn’t bode well for city commissioners whose inaction on behalf of a colleague shows a lack of decency on their part. We live in a time when abusive speech has become the political norm, when “That’s politics” or “It doesn’t really mean anything” has been normalized, I would expect more from the Lawrence City Commission. Someone must be the adult in the room when these verbal attacks occur against our elected officials, and from what I’ve seen the commissioners have abrogated that responsibility.

David L. Teska,

Lawrence