LINCOLN -- Mayor Doug Hutchins closed the July 21 City Council meeting asking members to pay attention to what they post on Facebook, saying he's received calls from citizens for the past month about comments made in a group administered by council member Johnny Stowers.
Lincoln is a small town and has a lot of opinions, Hutchins said.
"If you feel the need to participate in social media, pay attention to what you do and make sure you're telling the truth and make sure what you're doing is for Team Lincoln and not Team You," Hutchins said.
Hutchins pointed out people can post anything they want on Facebook.
"That is freedom of speech, but it is also abuse of freedom," he said. "So when you do that, take into account who's going to be looking at this. Is it a new mom that's just moved here from California and she's making a decision whether to put her kids in Lincoln schools or Prairie Grove schools? It makes a difference. Pay attention."
Stowers is the administrator for a Facebook group now named "Original Everything Lincoln Arkansas Since February 2018." The page explains that it was first set up in 2018 by Dale Michelle Powers to exchange ideas and information about what is happening in and around Lincoln. The group presently has more than 4,000 members.
Stowers last week said he took over as administrator of the Facebook group after Powers passed away in February. The original name was Everything Lincoln AR. Stowers said he recently changed the name because people have started other groups with similar names.
Stowers said he is administering "Original Everything Lincoln Arkansas Since February 2018" as a private citizen, not as a city official. He said he rarely posts on the page, mainly just to provide information if people ask specific questions.
He said he plans to continue to be the administrator but declined further comment.
Stowers posted an announcement to the group's page in April, saying anyone was welcome to join, as long as they were abiding by the rules. He warned that posts would be deleted if there was profanity, slandering or bullying of anyone. If people continued with such comments, they would be moderated or removed from the page, he wrote.
"With the coverage this group gets, it should draw people in, not run them off," he wrote back in April. "If you want to improve the city, support it instead of running it down."
City Attorney Steve Zega also addressed questions about the Facebook group in a July 9 email to council members. Zega said he's received a lot of email about Stowers' administration of the page on Facebook and other questions about blocking people or deleting comments.
Referring to a Federal Appeals Court case and a blog post from the Knight Institute for the First Amendment at Columbia University, Zega encouraged council members to think about such issues from the perspective of the Freedom of Information Act.
"The question you ask yourself when you post or like or respond on social media should not be 'Did I mean to say that in my official capacity?' Rather, it should be, 'Will someone reading this take it in my official capacity?' When you comment on, advocate for or ask for feedback on Lincoln public issues, your reader is going to take it that a council member is commenting, advocating or asking."
He said council members cannot use their power or capacity as a public official to suppress or burden speech they don't like.
For "purely" personal social media accounts, council members are free to block, snooze, mute, delete or unfriend anyone they want, he added.
Zega also gave general advice, saying, "You can control what you say and do; you cannot control what others say and do. Please keep that in mind when the temptation to get in a posting war overtakes you, because when you go after a citizen -- rightly or wrongly -- he or she is going to view it as City Hall coming after him or her."
Hutchins reminded council members there is a "very fine line" on what they can do as elected officials.
"We can't go in and say things we think we should say every time we think we should say it on social media because it gets taken out of context," he said.
Stowers' Lincoln group is a very popular Facebook page and can be both beneficial to the city and detrimental to the city, Hutchins said.
"We can sway how that goes. We're here on one team to make Lincoln better and protect our citizens. Keep that in mind."