Lawton City Hall ID Debacle Reminds Voters How Little Council Members Actually Do
If you haven't been included in a conversation about the Lawton City councils controversial City Hall ID requirement, I totally understand. The issue arose and fell to defeat in four days flat.
It all started last Thursday when the city announced they would require all visitors to show an ID upon entering city hall.
As with most things the Lawton City Council passes, this was instantly a very unpopular policy.
Immediately, tons of people in Lawton took to the streets to protest... in the form of complaining about it to other like-minded individuals on social media. I'd be curious to get an accurate count on how many times the word "lawsuit" was used in direct correlation to the ID policy.
The city then tried to smooth out the wrinkles by explaining the reason why they would now require IDs to enter Lawton City Hall.
As you can expect, this didn't go over any better than the initial announcement.
For the record...
So many people instantly went straight to that "I know my rights" place on Facebook. I can't tell you how many times I saw someone mention their fourth amendment right in contrast to this, and then how many people took this train and thought and rolled with it.
Is it unlawful or illegal for the municipality to require an ID to enter a public building? No.
It's not a fourth amendment thing to require an ID to access a public building unless the government is seizing or searching your property without your consent or a warrant.
All in all, while legal, it's really just a big-D move that sheds even more light on the fact that our Lawton city councilors have so little to do, they're just trying to find things to rubber-stamp their names on in order to convince themselves their lives mattered in the sense of having an impact on society.
Regardless of the legal status, the city backed down and rescinded this policy.
If this had all ended up in the courts, the City of Lawton would have almost definitely won, but at what cost to the taxpayer?
While the decision to require an ID was ill-advised and over-zealous by our councilors, opting to just give in and not waste our taxes on lawyer fees was a good one.
It's one of those rare times they get to claim to be the heroes in a situation they accidentally caused by not remembering their only job is to spend as little money as possible, and when they have to spend to do so on things that actually matter... like roads.
Spoiler, Lawton is about to ask for $60million more to finally fix the roads in town... Are we falling for that old line again?