ABC story on social media use by public officials
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — City Hall is “all a Twitter” about tweets from Columbus Police Deputy Chief Ken Kuebler. In fact, they are spending big bucks on a law firm to investigate the officer.
The City of Columbus allocated up to $500,000 for law firm Baker-Hostetler to investigate police actions during the riots.
Now there is a new $50,000 contract for the same law firm to investigate Kuebler, whose personal Twitter account is @kenkeebs.
We asked the safety department, since they have lawyers on staff, why they don’t use them to determine if Kuebler has violated any policies. We did not get an answer so we sought the counsel of Columbus-based attorney Mark Weaver. Weaver has a statewide reputation in media law, social media, and First Amendment practice.
“It seems like a lot of money for what should not be such a big task," said Weaver. "These are fair questions for taxpayers to ask. Government employees do have First Amendment rights and the ability of the employer, the government, in this case, to reach out and discipline an employee for what he or she does on their own time is very seriously limited.”
Kuebler tweeted “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”
He also wrote, “It has come to my attention that some people got a case of the hurt feels because of the things I’ve said on Twitter.”
Kuebler tackled controversial topics like COVID-19 and masks, back to school in the pandemic, and is critical of mayors, city council, and governors.
“You don’t check your entire First Amendment rights at the door when you go work for government,” said Weaver. “I tell elected officials to be very careful about how you try to quash the First Amendment rights of critics. There is a strong history of law that says that people have the right to criticize city government and in many cases that includes city employees."
Kuebler declined an on-camera comment. In a statement released by CPD he said, “my social media and my employment are not connected.”
Weaver said the laws around these topics are still developing, but he thinks an old concept applies.
“The speech that most aggravates us deserves the greatest amount of First Amendment protection.”