I will be filing a Federal civil rights lawsuit against my local city council members, mayor, city attorney and my city. Story below.

I attended 3 city council meetings a few months back. I went to criticize the council members & mayor during the public comment session of the city council meeting, which is the last section before closing.

Before the public comment session, the mayor reads a short "requirement" for the public speakers. One is that the person has to give their name and address in order to address the council.

Due to past and current political party tensions and their respective "followers" protests and violence, I choose to remain anonymous, in case my comments anger a parties constituents. I am a Independent voter/citizen by the way, not even of the Independent party. I have no party affiliation. I vote for the candidate that will screw the citizens the least.

I told the mayor that I value my anonymity and would like to speak anonymously. For 2 of the council meetings, he agreed. Then on the third and final time I attended, the city attorney was present and when I got up to speak, the city attorney restated the name/address rule and said if I wanted to speak, I had to identify myself. I refused. The mayor nor none of the city council members objected to allow me to speak. The meeting quickly ended shortly there after. I definitely believe the city attorney was brought in due to my criticism of the governments incompetence during my previous speeches.

It is also ironic that my denial to speak unless I identified myself was about a month away from the election where the mayor was running for reelection and a city council member was running against him.

Kentucky has KRS 61.840 (open meetings statute) that states in part, that there should be nothing that requires a person to identify themselves to attend a public open meeting. If I am forced to give my name/address to speak and address the council, I am effectively identifying myself as attending a public meeting.

How would I file to remain anonymous?
* Last updated by: CLIFF2 on 12/8/2024 @ 2:54 PM *

I don't think federal court is the proper venue for your action. If the problem is with the city, the venue is for whatever district your county court house is in. Your state constitution most likely has something similar to freedom of speech, but you can always site the 1st amendment in your memoranda. The video course says the federal constitution restricts governments and the state constitution are grants of power, maybe go over that course again. The easiest way to remain anonymous is to get a new a virtual or shared office and use the address they give you.