City Hall Revokes Kiefaber's Constitutional Rights

In a bizarre and illegal move, Baltimore City officials have banned former Senator Theatre owner Tom Kiefaber from attending public meetings at City Hall in clear violation of his constitutional rights.

Mr. Kiefaber has never harmed anyone and is not a physical threat, but City Hall officials clearly do not like what they think he might say. Kiefaber made one spontaneous peaceful protest at a City Council meeting and was thrown out. A week or so later, he was thrown out of a Board of Estimates meeting he had sat in for 40 minutes without saying a word and without doing anything, apparently because city officials thought he might have an opinion about the next item on the agenda, the West Side "Superblock" project.

The Baltimore Sun appears to be in collusion with City Hall on this, as I will illustrate below. When I saw the Sun article, which does not include a quote from Kiefaber, a hunch told me to call Kiefaber and find out what happened.

My call quickly confirmed that the Baltimore Sun had received the letter from City Solicitor George A. Nilson, but Kiefaber had not received it. When Kiefaber got a late Saturday afternoon call from the Sun about a letter he did not have, he questioned Sun reporter Tricia Bishop about why they had the letter and he did not. Bishop told him that Nilson had sent it to an address in Sparks, Maryland, where Kiefaber has not lived for over a year.

Bishop asked Kiefaber for a quote over the phone, but given Kiefaber's experiences over many years with the Sun, which has a pattern of either not quoting him or twisting his words and cherry picking the most negative part of his words out of context, Kiefaber insisted on putting the quote in writing. Kiefaber says Bishop then got miffed and wrote in her article that he refused to comment.

After the Sun article came out this afternoon, Kiefaber called the Sun and spoke with Steve Kilarp, who appeared to see that an injustice had been done and promised Kiefaber that if he sent him a quote in writing, he would make sure it got into later editions of The Sun. Kiefaber sent Kilarp the following quote in email:

I appreciate an opportunity to comment on this article for later editions of The Sun. Ms. Bishop reports incorrectly that I refused comment. That is not true. I merely insisted on providing prompt answers to her questions, in writing, a methodology that Ms. Bishop refused to indulge. She was apparently miffed and proceeded to mischaracterized my position in her error-laced article.

Rather than update the article as promised, however, someone at the Sun apparently decided they did not like the quote he sent them, and instead updated the article with the following lie in bold print:

Kiefaber refused to make a comment on the letter or criminal summons by phone, saying he preferred to do so in writing. No written statement had arrived late Saturday. He also said that The Sun was not covering him fairly.

Kiefaber then called the Sun again and spoke to Content Editor Andy Rosen. Kiefaber asked Rosen why the Sun had not printed the comment he sent them, and had instead lied and said he did not send a comment. Rosen told him they were not going to update the article.

Kiefaber also asked Rosen to meet with him to discuss the pattern of the Sun's documented smear campaign against Kiefaber. Rosen said no and hung up the phone, according to Kiefaber.

The Sun's article also falsely states that Kiefaber was recently escorted out of The Senator Theatre. I was there. Kiefaber came out on his own. Nobody escorted him. Kiefaber also called the police himself after his argument with the new operators.