Scott Gunnerson

FLORIDA TODAY

The Cocoa Beach mayor's silencing of a woman at Thursday's city commission meeting led to a heated exchange that saw a former commission member booted from City Hall.

Harriett Fersh was commenting about the new Cocoa Beach Art Show being developed to fill the void on Thanksgiving weekend after the Space Coast Art Festival announced it would move to Port Canaveral this year.

She began to refer to Commissioner Tim Tumulty's involvement when she was warned by the mayor.

"Harriett, be careful with your words, because I'm not going to allow it," Mayor Dave Netterstrom said

Fersh continued and Netterstrom banged his gavel on the table and asked her to sit down.

She then asked him what she said that was wrong?

"Getting negative," Netterstrom responded. "You were going to tell Commissioner Tumulty he has some sort of conflict for volunteering and I'm done talking about the art show."

At issue is the speaker's First Amendment rights versus the city's right to an orderly meeting, according to Melbourne attorney Michael Kahn, who specializes in constitutional law.

"It seems that since she really didn't say anything offensive and they could not anticipate what she was going to say next and she was within her three minutes that her First Amendment rights had been violated," Kahn said.

Public agencies are allowed under state law to have reasonable rules and regulations to ensure the orderly conduct of a public meeting and require orderly behavior on the part of the public attending, according to the Florida Attorney General's website.

Fersh said Friday that she is considering taking the issue up with the state.

"I want to tell them what happened and see what my rights are," Fersh said.

Kahn pointed out that freedom of speech in a government meeting is not as robust as it is elsewhere in society. Officials can limit freedom of speech in order to maintain order.

"When you walk into a public meeting, your First Amendment rights have conditions attached," Kahn said.

Netterstrom said Friday that it is his goal to maintain respectful meetings free of negative comments.

"Some of the public comment starts going down the path of being personal attacks or lies or misinformation and it gets awful emotional sometimes, and I'm trying to nip that," Netterstrom said.

After Fersh sat down, former Commissioner Tony Sasso jumped up to admonish Netterstrom for cutting her off during public comment.

"Mayor, you know I've sat in that seat, nobody likes being criticized," Sasso said. "But this is public comment."

Netterstrom asked Sasso, who is executive director of Keep Brevard Beautiful, to sit down and he refused.

"No, I'm not sitting down, you throw me out," Sasso said. "Because I'm telling you I have a right to speak, this is public comment, this is the United States."

At that point, a Cocoa Beach police officer stepped beside Sasso to escort him out of the meeting.

"Shame on you mayor, you are getting too full of yourself," Sasso said. "I want it on record I was thrown out."

During his tenure on the Cocoa Beach Commission, Sasso served as vice-mayor and was in charge of several meetings. He went on to become a state legislator.

On Thursday night, he went to the meeting only to sit in the gallery as an observer. Those plans changed when events provoked him to challenge the mayor.

"I didn't go there to talk, I just wanted to see what was going on," Sasso said Friday. "I'm a big free speech, good government advocate and I got pretty fired up."

On Friday, Netterstrom apologized online for his actions.

"I'm not proud of how I handled the meeting last night," Netterstrom wrote in in a comment to an online version of the story Friday. "My apologies to the speakers and community and please accept that even a Mayor can have a bad day once in a while."

Contact Gunnerson at twitter.com/scottgunnerson, sgunnerson@ floridatoday.com, 321-360-1016.