Yelm, Wash. is most famous as the home to Ramtha, an ancient being channeled by J.Z. Knight and revered by former TV actress Linda Evans (Dynasty). (Ms. Evans, who lives in Yelm, is also the former girlfriend of Greek New Age-ish pianist Yanni.) Now the little burg’s town council is under fire from the ACLU, reports the Seattle P.I.:

Aaron Caplan, an ACLU lawyer in Seattle, has written Yelm Mayor Adam Rivas and council members that the group thinks it is unconstitutional to prohibit any mention of Wal-Mart or big-box stores in general at council meetings.


The policy has been increasingly restrictive during the past five months. No one who signs up to talk about big-box stores, much less Wal-Mart, at a council meeting is allowed to talk, and anyone who mentions big-box stores or Wal-Mart is told to sit down.


Yelm’s influential group of channelers appears to be anti-WalMart. A tape for sale warns, “Wal-Mart’s use of RFID, for stock/inventory or for tracking us?” More below:

Municipal attorney Brent Dille said council members were fed up with complaints about Wal-Mart’s application to build a superstore and demands for a moratorium on big-box stores. He also said officials don’t want to appear biased if the council is presented with an appeal of Wal-Mart’s application.

“We don’t answer to the ACLU.”
– Yelm Mayor Adam Rivas

Caplan wrote that no law requires the council to forbid all mention of the issue at its meetings.


“The ability of citizens to state their views about matters of public concern is one of the cornerstones of a free and accountable government,” he wrote. “Yelm’s practice of silencing public comment violates that principle.”


Federal court rulings cited by Caplan don’t apply to Yelm, Rivas argued.


“Everything they list in there comes from court cases in other states that have nothing to do with Washington state and the appearance of fairness act that we’re trying to uphold,” the mayor said. “For the most part, we feel fairly confident in what we’re doing and the steps that we’re taking.”


ACLU spokesman Doug Honig disagreed: The First Amendment applies to every citizen of the United States, he said.


Rivas does not expect any change in policy as the result of the letter and doesn’t plan to answer it, despite Caplan’s request for a response this month.


“We don’t answer to the ACLU,” Rivas said.


Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 9, 2005


I wonder what Ramtha thinks of his latest home being taken over by big box stores.


A clip from the a page on the site, Making Known the Unknown, which appears to be for Ramtha followers:

THE YELM COMMERCE GROUP is a collection of concerned citizens who view the addition of a big box store, such as WalMart & large residential developments, to be an infringement upon our local population & a diminishment of our small town values. We are concerned about their impact for two major reasons. Traffic, already measured at 26,000 cars per day, will become an irrevocable disaster in terms of safety & congestion. WalMart, according to their application, will create 8,000 additional cars, thereby overwhelming the two lanes thru town. The promised by pass is, at best, ten years away & counting.


That same page has a list of media stories on the controversy:

OF LOCAL NOTE:
The Yelm Mayor & City Council placing a moratorium on discussion of big box stores has brought a wrath of stinging rebuke from far and wide, including this front page headline in The Olympian:
link here
And this very balanced editorial in the same paper:
link here
Even the AP picked up this story and printed it nationally:
link here
Yelm keeps title for fastest growth in the county
link here
And video from KING-5 TV news titled “Free speech under attack in Yelm”:
“A group of neighbors fighting a massive Wal-Mart superstore in their small town are being silenced by City Hall. It’s the biggest issue to hit Yelm in years. So why is it being banned from city council meetings?[no link]