ACLU wades into Yelm fight over Wal-Mart

The American Civil Liberties Union has the nation's media calling Yelm.

The city attorney and mayor of the Thurston County city spent yesterday fielding phone calls from radio stations as far away as Los Angeles and television networks in New York because the ACLU sent a letter to city officials saying it was unconstitutional to ban people from mentioning "Wal-Mart," "big-box stores" and "moratorium" during public-comment time at council meetings.

But Mayor Adam Rivas says the sudden First Amendment debate is all a big misunderstanding.

"If I go down in history as the mayor who was protecting the process, I'll be OK with that," Rivas said.

The conflict began earlier this year when Wal-Mart proposed building a store in Yelm. The city told the Bentonville, Ark., company that it needed to resolve some environmental issues before it built, but otherwise gave the go-ahead.

A citizen's group appealed, saying Wal-Mart should have to do a full environmental study. The appeal will go to a public hearing before the City Council in August.

That puts the City Council in a "quasi-judicial" role, meaning it must act as an impartial jury on the issue. So it is against city rules for council members to hear arguments about the appeal until the hearing.

"If I let them have all this negative say to the council, it loses them [the opponents] their upper hand," Rivas said. "Wal-Mart can come back and say 'foul.' "

The rule, however, hasn't stopped some citizens from standing up and arguing against Wal-Mart during the public-comment time at council meetings, Rivas said.

"So I ask them to sit down."

Then the local newspaper, the Nisqually Valley News, found the story: The mayor won't allow discussions of Wal-Mart in public meetings, it reported. Other papers picked it up after that.

Then the ACLU got involved.

ACLU attorney Aaron Caplan wrote a letter to the mayor Wednesday: "According to recent press reports, the Council will routinely block discussion of topics — or even particular words, such as "moratorium" — that the Council does not wish to hear about. This practice frustrates the entire purpose of a public-comment period, which is to allow citizens the opportunity to tell their representatives what they care about."

The letter cited landmark Supreme Court cases on free speech and asked Yelm to clarify its restrictions by July 22.

ACLU spokesman Doug Honig said the organization does not plan to sue the city over the matter, and that discussions this week with the city attorney have been "very constructive."

Rivas said he will continue to "protect the process" for the good of Yelm's residents.

There will be a three-day comment period in August when citizens and Wal-Mart can both have their say.

Nick Martin: 206-464-3896 or nmartin@seattletimes.com