What do you do when a public official tells you to leave a public meeting?
Three Detroit Documenters found themselves having to answer that question at the 2024 Tow Rate Commission’s Sept. 12 meeting when the chair, Laura Goodspeed, asked them to quit taking notes, stop recording and leave.
Detroit Documenters are members of the public who are trained and paid to take notes on government meetings, which are then published. Outlier Media operates the Detroit Documenters program.
The Michigan Open Meetings Act (OMA) allows for anyone to attend public meetings so long as they don’t cause a “breach of the peace.” Attendees are allowed to record audio and video and may broadcast meetings live. According to the statute, “The exercise of this right does not depend on the prior approval of the public body.”
“Under my authority, I’m gonna ask that you stop recording, you stop taking notes … I’m going to ask that the media step out of the room.”
Laura Goodspeed, chair of the 2024 Tow Rate Commission
Only four members of the public were present at the Tow Rate Commission meeting: Documenters Shiva Shahmir, Betsy Spratt and Perry Sylvester, and a person representing Troy’s Towing. For nearly the first hour of the meeting, the Documenters took notes, recorded audio and posted live coverage on social media as Goodspeed presented slides on proposed rates the commission would introduce to the City Council Public Health and Safety Standing Committee four days later.
One slide showed proposed tow rates for boats, trailers and campers would increase to $700 per tow, up from $100. The slide was also included in binders available to any meeting attendee.
“I ask you, please, please, please do not publish any of these numbers,” Goodspeed said.
At that point, someone in the meeting pointed out that the three Documenters “are all media.”
“If this were to get out and get leaked out, it’s going to be bad,” Goodspeed said.
“Under my authority, I’m gonna ask that you stop recording, you stop taking notes,” she told the Documenters. “Because this meeting is not technically subject to the Open Meetings Act, I’m going to ask that the media step out of the room.”
In an email Goodspeed sent Outlier Media after the meeting, she explained: “Publishing preliminary, non-final information only leads to confusion and does not allow us to present our rationale and position.”
Towing in Detroit
Detroit’s towing industry has been mired in controversy for years. In 2021, former Detroit City Councilmember Andre Spivey and a staff member pleaded guilty in federal court to accepting bribes in connection with towing oversight. In 2018, Gasper Fiore, the owner of multiple tow companies, was sentenced to prison for bribery, and his affiliated companies and some family members were banned from doing business in Detroit for 15-20 years.
The 2024 Tow Rate Commission was established by a city ordinance, which orders the creation of a public body to review fees for police-authorized towing every two years. The commission is required to submit its recommendations to City Council by October 1 of each review year.
Are Tow Rate Commission meetings public?
Goodspeed later shared a report with Outlier from the Legislative Policy Division. It says the Tow Rate Commission may not be subject to the Open Meetings Act “on its face” because it only makes recommendations, and final decisions are made by City Council at meetings subject to the OMA. But the Legislative Policy Division said the commission should nonetheless abide by the act because the Detroit city charter “expresses a clear preference for advisory commissions to comply with the OMA.” The division pointed to heightened public interest in the Tow Rate Commission’s work, given recent scandals.
Detroit Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett, the head of the Law Department, agreed. “They are not exempt from the requirements, and the press should have been allowed to attend,” he said. “At some point in the future, you can be assured the Law Department will reach out. We will make sure that all of the requisite appropriate procedures are followed.”
Perry Sylvester, one of the Documenters ejected from the meeting, said transparency is a critical part of democracy. “This is the information that the citizen needs so they can go ahead and call their councilperson,” he said.
The Tow Rate Commission presented its proposed rates to City Council’s Public Health and Safety Standing Committee on Sept. 16. Chair Gabriela Santiago-Romero said the committee would review and revisit the matter this week before forwarding it to the full council with a recommendation.
Outlier Media’s Noah Kincade and Detroit Documenters Kayleigh Lickliter, Shiva Shahmir, Betsy Spratt and Perry Sylvester contributed to this reporting.
