City seeks dismissal of federal lawsuit
Boulder has filed a motion to dismiss Lisa Sweeney-miran’s federal lawsuit over her removal from the city’s Police Oversight Panel.
The City Council voted last May to oust Sweeney-miran from the civilian oversight panel, which reviews complaints against police officers and makes recommendations for officer discipline, based on allegations that she was biased against police and law enforcement.
Her appointment to the panel only three months earlier sparked outrage among some factions in the community, in part because she had previously made statements on social media criticizing police and policing in America.
Before her appointment, Sweeney-miran had also been a taxpayer plaintiff on the ACLU lawsuit challenging Boulder’s camping ban, but she withdrew herself from the lawsuit when she was appointed to the POP.
In her lawsuit, filed Jan. 9, Sweeney-miran alleges Boulder violated her free speech and due process rights by removing her from the panel as retaliation for her criticism of police. The suit also argues the city violated her First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances by forcing her to withdraw from the ACLU lawsuit upon her appointment to the POP.
But the city has offered several justifications for moving to dismiss the lawsuit. In a court filing Monday, Luis Toro of the Boulder City Attorney’s office argued that, as an appointed volunteer on the oversight panel who was to be paid a monthly stipend, Sweeney-miran qualifies as a public employee, and public employees’ speech is “less protected” than that of other citizens.
“The unique relationship between volunteer board, commission and panel members and the city justifies limitations on free speech rights while these individuals are performing public service,” Toro wrote.
Toro also argued that if a public employee’s speech hinders government operations, the government’s interest outweighs the individual employee’s free-speech rights.
In this case, he wrote, Boulder’s interests outweighed Sweeney-miran’s freedom of speech interests because her social media posts and participation as a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit are “disruptive to the Police Oversight Panel’s operations” because they call her impartiality into question, and by extension, could invalidate the panel’s decisions.
The lawsuit against the city could also be seen as a conflict of interest, he argued.
Additionally, Toro wrote that Sweeney-miran’s contentious nomination to the panel, and the complaints and investigations that ensued, were disruptive to the oversight panel and forced the City Council to delay the appointment of other panel members.
Toro also said there was no evidence suggesting Sweeney-miran was ever forced to withdraw from the ACLU lawsuit. He wrote that Sweeney-miran was told by an unnamed council member that her participation was “a barrier to her selection for the (panel)” but that she ultimately withdrew from the lawsuit voluntarily. For that reason, he argued, the city did not violate her right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
Dan Williams, Sweeneymiran’s attorney, wrote in a statement that the city was showing “a startling retreat from its prior commitment to meaningful police accountability” by removing someone from the Police Oversight Panel who had been critical of police.