McMinnville (TN) City Administrator Herb Llewellyn

On August 14, 2002, a column appeared in the McMinnville, Tennessee newspaper The Southern Standard entitled "Eating at the Game Takes Guts." The column was written by Dale Stubblefield, a staff reporter for The Southern Standard, and contained what was obviously Stubblefield's personal opinion about the quality of food served at the city's ballpark concession stands. As the title of the column suggests, Stubblefield was highly critical of the taste of the ballpark food. Feeling unfairly criticized, two city employees who worked at the concession stands wrote letters to The Southern Standard challenging Stubblefield's assertions. Both letters appeared in the newspaper the following week.

In response to these letters, on August 27, McMinnville City Administrator Herb Llewellyn issued a notice to all city employees directing them not to write letters to the editor or make calls to local radio stations without seeking and receiving his prior approval. The notice, which was attached to city employees' paychecks, stated that it was the city mayor's duty to act as McMinnville's "official spokesman" and that commenting on how the city provides services is the mayor's job alone.

While it is true that some restrictions may be placed on the speech of public employees, Mr. Llewellyn's policy far exceeds the scope of such constitutionally permissible limits. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that restrictions on public employee speech on matters of "public concern," as opposed to speech involving only private matters, are rarely constitutional. Mr. Llewellyn's policy makes no such distinction. Even if a court were to hold that the two letters to the editor which precipitated Mr. Llewellyn's policy did not involve a matter of "public concern" (a position that, as a legal matter, is highly doubtful), such a finding would not justify the blanket gag that restricts the speech of McMinnville city employees regardless of the topic on which they wish to publicly comment. Accordingly, McMinnville, Tennessee, City Administrator Herb Llewellyn earns a 2003 Jefferson Muzzle.