DA Launches Probe into Mayor's Liberal Use of Mute Button During Meetings
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s Public Integrity Division is looking into complaints that the mayor of Carson is using a mute button to silence those he doesn’t agree with during city council meetings.
Mayor Jim Dear ostensibly uses the mute button to police the allotted time each speaker has to address the council. But critics tell the Los Angeles Times that Dear hits mute when he doesn’t like what speakers are saying.
There is no allegation of criminal wrongdoing. So if the district attorney’s office finds irregularities, the only remedy likely would be a letter asking the mayor to lay off the mute button or a request that a judge order him to do so.
Dear brushed off the inquiry as a response to a “political gadfly” who “insists on getting his way at city council meetings.”
