RIVERTON — For months, Wayne Dick has been stewing over a handful of words from the Wyoming Constitution: “The right of petition, and of the people peaceably to assemble to consult for the common good, and to make known their opinions, shall never be denied or abridged.”
The “shall never be denied or abridged” is underlined in his copy, and it’s part of a stack of paperwork organized in folders across his home office.
Among the pages are the oath that each Fremont County commissioner must swear to, reams of legalese about navigating the court systems in Wyoming. One is rather simple: The top reads “Wayne Dick, Plaintiff.”
The one-page filing was served last week on four of five Fremont County commissioners in a lawsuit that alleges they both violated their oath of office and the Wyoming Constitution when they limited the way their constituents may address them during county meetings.
For Dick, it’s about both seeking justice, and sticking up for the activism of the common man.
The frequent letters-to-the-editor writer often urges regular people to speak up and tell their elected officials what they think.
“I try to get people to become involved, and they’re [the commissioners] trying to shut them off,” he said.
So Dick took the first half of the year to figure this out: Can one citizen challenge the government when he believes elected officials are in the wrong? Turns out, he can.
The back story
Dick’s lawsuit targets a controversy at the commission table that boiled over late last year.
Karen Wetzel, concerned about a particular library book cataloged in the teen section that she felt was obscene, began to read passages aloud during the county’s public comment period.
She was cut off and asked to leave the board room; later, Fremont County Commission Chair Larry Allen attempted to have a sheriff’s deputy remove her.
The deputy, citing his charge to keep the peace and not mitigate civil arguments, declined to do so.
Following that scene, the Fremont County Commission hit the brakes on allowing public comment at all, then imposed new rules: In order to speak during a commissioners meeting, a speaker must sign up; indicate a topic they intend to discuss, which must be on the agenda; and then, they might be called on and allowed two minutes.
The new policy, called “decorum and civility guidelines,” was enacted in January of this year, and it didn’t come without objection.
Commissioner Ron Fabrizius decried the new rules as running afoul of the law.
“There are things I don’t want to hear, either, but that’s my job — to listen,” he said in an interview at the time. “My dad fought in the front lines in Korea. There are 400,000 reasons why we need to have public comment, and they are all buried up there in Arlington Cemetery … That’s what they perished for.”
During a call Monday, Chairman Allen said that it’s county policy not to comment about pending litigation. But earlier this year in an interview, he did discuss the new rules for public comment.
“We want it to be similar to the legislative session. If you had something to say regarding a bill, and in this case, not a bill, but something that the Legislature is acting on, then we have the option of taking public comment then,” Allen said. “We just want to be more professional and not leave it wide open … You can’t just go in there and say what’s on your mind.”
What can one man do?
At the time that the new rules were being considered, Dick rallied against them.
“I’m well aware of, and in agreement with, the fact that in order for any meetings or gatherings of humans some type of guidelines need to be in place. However, remember that they are only guidelines. The guidelines for the open meeting law warns that ‘violations of the open meeting law can have serious consequences both for the municipality and for the elected officials,’” he told commissioners. “As elected officials you took an oath to obey and defend the Constitution of the state of Wyoming, with any violation of such making you guilty of perjury. The aforementioned Constitution article states that a speaker ‘shall never be denied or abridged.’ I might suggest that you look up the meaning of the word ‘abridged’ and be aware of the words of an Arizona judge when speaking on the matter when he warned: ‘to not halt a speaker because of viewpoint.’”
On Monday, Dick said his many comments offered to commissioners were something of a warning.
“People have the right to speak,” he said. “They’re making it so tough that people can’t come and talk to them. You’re taking away their rights, and it just bothered me. I thought, you know, a citizen ought to be able to take them to court.”
Dick first attempted to get the sheriff’s office involved in investigating whether the public comment rules violate the protections outlined in Wyoming’s Constitution.
After a few months, it became clear that the county’s legal arm wouldn’t investigate its executive branch, and Dick tried to take action at the district court level. Workers there referred him to legal aid, and Dick spent hours listening to music on hold with that agency.
All the while, he was doing legal research on his own, with one question keeping him up at night: What can one man do?
Dick figured out all the paperwork required: courtesy copies of filings to the Pinedale judge who will oversee the lawsuit, notices about self-representation, proper pleading paper, how to get the summons stamped, how to serve the commissioners, all the while being told, “the court cannot tell you, the court cannot help you in any way by law to do this. You have to figure out how to do it yourself,” he said.
“So I’m getting educated. Heck, I’m getting ready to file for the Bar here,” he said.
While others have supported Dick in objecting to the county’s new rules, he’s been careful to ensure no one else is named in the lawsuit. He knows he’ll just be one regular guy going up against big lawyers, and it’s possible the county could come after him for attorney’s fees if he doesn’t prevail in court. He doesn’t want to open anyone else up to that.
But if he does prove that commissioners violated the Constitution? That carries some stiff penalties.
“Whether I can win a court suit, I don’t know,” he said. “I found out this could have pretty heavy repercussions. If I prove it, they can no longer hold office in the state of Wyoming, according to the statute. That’s not what I was after when I started after them. All I wanted was people to be able to speak at a meeting.”
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