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a woman in Omaha, nebraskais suing the city’s mayor for violating her First Amendment after he allegedly deleted her comments and blocked her from his official Facebook Page after she complained about his failure to fix a major problem sinkhole Near his house.
In trial, Omaha resident Lisa Kilker is suing Mayor John Ewing Jr. in a lawsuit filed Monday in the District Court of Nebraska. They were denied the right to participate in public discussion And now preventing him from seeing public announcements.
The lawsuit alleges that Ewing blocked Kilker from her official Facebook page in early October after she left a comment on a post criticizing her for failing to follow through on his campaign promise to fix a large sinkhole that had opened up near her condo building in downtown Omaha.
In a now-deleted comment, Kilker wrote: “Regis Building residents had to take out a $1 million loan to pay for sinkhole repairs. You ran a campaign promising to help us. What happened to those promises??”
She says the actions of removing her comments and blocking them from the mayor’s page are a violation of the First Amendment, as well as a recent Supreme Court ruling that declared public officials cannot prevent a person from commenting on a social media page if it is used in an official capacity.
Independent Comment has been sought from the Mayor’s office.
The sinkhole has existed for some time, but became a major issue when sidewalks were paved in January opened under a garbage truckA huge crater is forming in the city of Omaha. The sinkhole issue became a talking point during the city’s mayoral race earlier this year – Ewing, who was elected in June Promised to resolve this.
Although work to repair the sinkhole and its underlying issue began in September, Kilker complained on the mayor’s Facebook page in October.
Kilker is now asking a federal judge to declare that Ewing violated his First Amendment rights, force Ewing to restore his access to his official Facebook page and award him damages determined by a jury.
In a statement posted Tuesday on Ewing’s official Facebook page, the mayor said the social media page is “used primarily as a way to share updates” and comments are generally disabled on posts.
“Inadvertently, but rarely, that feature was not always disabled. Moving forward, every effort will be made to maintain a no comment policy,” Ewing’s post read.
Kilker acknowledged in his lawsuit that the mayor occasionally allows comments on posts but said he occasionally interacts with commenters, such as thanking a citizen who appreciated his efforts.
His comments about the sinkhole were made specifically on a now-deleted post where Ewing reposted his support of a local citizen with the caption “#PublicService #Empathy.” There was no information about the sinkhole in the post.
In the Supreme Court case linkedin vs free (2024), the judges ruled that public officials can be sued for blocking citizens from commenting on their social media pages, even if the account is private, as long as they have the authority to speak on behalf of the government or are accused of doing so in the post in question.
Kilker argues that since the mayor’s page was “dedicated to official city business”, he “suppressed protected citizen comment” when deleting his comment.
No hearing date has been set yet for the case.