Woody v. Carter

After reading the brief description of the case, I thought it necessary to add a couple of additional details. I was listed as one of the defendents. With the exception of comprehensive plan blogs that I use professionally, I don't blog. Carol Lindstrom (who does blog and has a public information blog at www.depotdazed.com) and I did, however, attend a few Christiansburg Town Council meetings to voice opposition to a proposal to site some cookie cutter townhomes being sited across the street from my depot (built in 1868 and in the National Regsiter) and within the boundaries of a National Historic District.

According to Mr. Woody's lawyer, we were added to the suit because we were seen talking to the two women who have the ThinkChristiansburg blog at a public meeting before a public body. When all was said and done, Mr. Woody's law suit cost roughly $9,000 in legal fees. As a professional comprehensive planner, as a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and, at the time the suit started, a public planner for the surrounding County, who specializes in public input and citizen participation process, Although I was, in fact, in the process of winding down my service with the County, I was still a public employee at the time the suit was filed and had to endure constant comments and a long string of "dirt" jokes during my final two months of public service.

During my tenure with the County, I designed the public input process, which won innovation awards for public participation from the Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association and the Virginia Association of Counties, and won the "planner of the year" award from the Citizens Planning Education Association of Virginia. I say this not to crow, but to make a larger point. I remain deeply disturbed by the implication that attending public hearings and voicing opposition to development that would clearly harm a neighborhood (or by extension, any other proposal) is grounds for inclusion in a SLAPP suit.

As someone who has spent a career encouraging people to get involved, be active, and stand up for their towns and their neighborhoods and their communities, I am appalled by the suit, not so much by my individual inclusion, but by the chilling message that it sends. What is left, finally, in a participatory democracy, when participation is rewarded with lawsuits and ill-afforded legal fees? What happens when those suits are filed against poor neighborhoods or against others who ill-prepared to defend their right to voice concern.

Perhaps, what I find most distrubing, is that Virginia, like others, does not require that the plaintiff in a SLAPP suit to pay the legal fees of those he or she has wrongfully or frivolously accused. In Virginia, judges have the discretion to order payment of fees, but only use that discretion in approximately 5% of the cases. In the final analysis, there is no mechanism to make wealthy developers or others think twice and no mechanism, other than countersuits which do little more than inflate already unaffordable legal costs more, to discourage the use of SLAPP suits.

Until the time when the State and the Courts recognize the value of public participation and the right of citizens to speak and adjust laws to strongly discourage SLAPP suits, individuals and organizations who benefit from diminished public participation and who use the legal system as a strong arm to silence opposition, perceived or real, will continue to manipulate the system and the public to their own ends.

Thank you for allowing me a space to comment.

Meghan H. Dorsett, AICP Cambria Planning Group
Formerly Montgomery County Department of Planning and GIS Services
Christiansburg, Virginia