Wednesday, September 15, 2010

"Don't Tase Me, Bro!"

Although not as dramatic as this famous free speech muzzling moment ...

I was ejected and escorted out of City Council Chambers on Wednesday evening by the Allentown Police. Yep.

Was it something I said?

Here's what I said, as reported on by WFMZ-TV 69 News.

I’m Bill Villa from Allentown here to expose a just amazing statement Mike Donovan made about me at City Council on September 1, after I left, that 69 News caught and reported on the next day.

Donovan said, "If I had done something wrong, I would be the first to apologize" to Mr. Villa.

Okay, well here’s 10 things Donovan did wrong, his apology should follow.

It was wrong and highly provocative of Donovan to allow fellow Morning Call blogger [Redacted] to post and sign, cruel and libelous comments about my family and me at Donovan’s blog the whole month of March, knowing that I had filed a lawsuit against [Redacted] for libel the month before. Donovan’s provoking of me obviously worked ... but it was wrong.

It was also wrong of Donovan to not monitor more closely and not delete the hundreds of cruel comments about my family that built up at his blog all of March … for example, one vile comment suggesting I engage in necrophilia with my deceased daughter stayed up at Donovan’s blog for 17 hours before he either finally saw it or got cold feet staring at it for 17 hours and deleted it.

Clearly, it was smoking gun wrong of Donovan to encourage vile comments against my family at his blog, by commenting there himself that the vile comments were, quote, "fun to read," as was also caught and reported on by 69 News.

It took Donovan 4 months to clean house and delete all his blog filth about my family, and waiting that long was wrong.

It was wrong of Donovan to terrorize my family at the same blog he uses to promote "civility" and "mutual respect" when blogging with constituents about matters of City Council.

As an Allentown Arts Commissioner, it was wrong of Donovan to encourage threatening comments about removing The Villas band from the Mayfair schedule and disrupting our performance with noisemakers.

And it was unbelievably wrong of Donovan to encourage personal insults and attacks against my wife Angie (left) ... a community volunteer … who accepted an Arts Ovation Award from The City in May on behalf of the Chen Arts group she co-founded to help revitalize downtown Allentown.

It's wrong of Donovan to not admit wrongdoing … it's wrong of Donovan to refuse my family an apology … and it's wrong of Donovan to put the City of Allentown through this at every meeting of City Council.

So there's 10 things Donovan did wrong.

Mr. Hanlon [City Clerk & Timekeeper], I'm now giving the balance of my 3 minutes to Councilor Donovan to apologize, and because it's my time remaining, Donovan may use it to apologize but for nothing else, Councilor Donovan …

Approximately :30 seconds remaining … tick ... tick ... tick ...

Council VP Donovan (refusing to apologize for a 4th time): "I relinquish my time to the next speaker."

Council President D'Amore: "Thank you Mr. Villa."

Note: They had this pusillanimous "evasion strategy" all worked out, and this was all they had. At this point, I still had about 20 seconds of time left ... but Council President Mike D'Amore clearly wanted me gone from the podium, and the microphone.

As I tried to get one final sentence in, the buzzer went off before I was finished and I kept going after the buzzer ... for a matter of seconds. That's when Council President D'Amore asked the Allentown Police to eject and escort me from City Council Chambers. To everyone's trigger-happy dismay, I went quietly.

AND ... I'll be appearing again regularly at Allentown City Council starting w/ their very next meeting on Wednesday, October 6.

See, as it turns out, despite spending who knows how many taxpayer dollars researching legal loophole maneuvers to shut me up, D'Amore & Donovan can't stop me from speaking at City Council, as long as I don't go any longer than 3 minutes flat.

Sadly, no more of my ingenious 30-second "dramatic silences" and watching the beads of sweat roll down Donovan's forehead and onto his clownish bow tie as he refuses to apologize while the clock ticks audibly. Good times.

But not to worry, from now on, I'll use every second of my 3 minutes and turn all of it into mesmerizing, must-see TV. And when the voters see it, they'll realize that all 7 City Councilors must-go, w/ Donovan going first.

I'm counting 9/15 as another big win.

FYI, "W" Mike Donovan teaches ethics (swear to God) at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA.

Mike D'Amore PhD teaches political science (!) at Sussex County Community College.

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