When a sitting elected official blocks the residents who pay their salary, that’s wrong. It’s also not a good look — and it’s legally questionable. In Platte County right now, that’s not an accusation. There’s a record.
County Treasurer Chris Kendall announced on his own campaign Facebook page that he “had to block a couple of users,” closing with “#Unbothered” and “#Movingon.” Residents’ questions posted to his page and to County Auditor Kevin Robinson’s page — questions about the petition signatures gathered in senior-living facilities, the financial disclosures all four “Neighbors First” candidates missed and the 30% raise Kendall and Robinson voted themselves — no longer appear on those pages. Only a page’s own administrators can remove another user’s comment. The originals are preserved, exactly as posted, at blocked-in-platte.com. I am one of the residents this was done to.
Understand what a block actually does. When a sitting elected official does it on the page he uses to discuss his office, his record and his candidacy, something else happens: a resident of this county loses the ability to see, question, or respond to anything that official posts there — not just the exchange that prompted the block, but everything after it. That’s not managing a comment section. That’s cutting a citizen out of the public conversation.
These are not private sites. Mr. Kendall and Mr. Robinson are sitting elected officials who use these very pages to inform the public about their offices — Mr. Kendall runs an ongoing series about the treasurer’s office. Pages like that are part of the marketplace of ideas and that is precisely when the law takes notice. A unanimous Supreme Court decision held that officials conducting public business on social media are bound by the First Amendment. A Virginia county official was held liable for blocking a single constituent for only 12 hours.
These officials and candidates should stop blocking and deleting constituents, unblock every resident they’ve blocked, restore the questions they removed and publicly apologize to the neighbors they silenced. The record is already preserved.
Read their actions, and the law, for yourself at blocked-in-platte.com. A slate that calls itself “Neighbors First” should not need a federal statute to make it talk to neighbors.
But make no mistake: Mr. Kendall and Mr. Robinson may have opened themselves up to a federal civil rights lawsuit. If they continue blocking constituents, they should not be surprised if one of those residents decides to take legal action — for behavior that is unethical on its face and, I believe, unlawful.
Kim Sincox
Platte County resident
