A Morris County mayor accused of temporarily blocking some critics from seeing his Facebook posts is being called out by the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Chatham Township Mayor Curt Ritter's personal Facebook page is set to private, but he often uses it to address municipal matters on public Internet forums.
One of Chatham Mayor Curt Ritter's Facebook posts The issue came to a head last month, when some opposing a proposal to allow bear hunting in Chatham Township reportedly claimed they were unable to see or respond to Ritter's community forum posts in which he supported making the change.
Seven days after the Chatham Township Committee voted 3-2 to keep the bear hunting ban, ACLU staff attorney Tess Borden sent a letter to Ritter in which she said he risked running afoul of the First Amendment -- though by that point Ritter had "un-blocked" his critics.
"While truly personal social media accounts that do not involve official activity would not raise the same speech concerns or requirements, as long as you use your personal social media site at least in part for official mayoral business, you should not block persons from access or commenting," Borden wrote.
Curt Ritter Ritter did not respond to requests for comment.
While there have been numerous incidents of public officials seeking to restrict access to their social media posts, the most prominent controversy -- also alluded to by Borden in her letter -- involves President Trump's personal Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump.
In July, the Knight First Amendment Institute filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven Trump critics who were blocked from Trump's Twitter account, which has 46.4 million followers.
The complaint argues that Trump's account qualifies as a "public forum" under the First Amendment, and that the government may not exclude people from it because of their views. It notes that the White House uses the account to make announcements and that Trump's advisers have said his tweets are "official statements" from the president.
Upon announcing the lawsuit last summer, Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute's executive director, stated, "The First Amendment applies to this digital forum in the same way it applies to town halls and open school board meetings."
Ritter, a Republican who worked as a deputy press secretary for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is a big Trump fan. He attended Trump's inauguration a year ago and the cover photo of his Facebook page shows a Trump for President flag and U.S. flag in front of a house.
Borden, contacted Tuesday, said no one had responded to her letter, which was sent to Ritter, the four other members of Chatham Township Committee, and Township Attorney Albert Cruz.
In her letter, Borden said that Ritter had temporarily blocked about a dozen residents from seeing his Facebook posts, and that "most or all" had expressed viewpoints differing from Ritter.
"As a result of being blocked, these residents were unable to see your posts in community forums on topics of community concern and were unable to engage in public discourse about them," Borden wrote to Ritter.
"By contrast, other community members whom you had not blocked have replied to your posts and engaged in back-and-forth conversations with you on these pages," Borden said.
The ACLU did not get involved in October, after more than a dozen accused Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop of blocking them on Facebook and Twitter. Fulop, a Democrat, responded that he barred only those barraging his page with off-topic comments or personal promotions, and was not singling out critics.
Newton Mayor Wayne Levante, who drew attention upon calling for a county-wide school district, removed his mayoral bio from his personal Facebook page in November after a school board member slammed his Election Day endorsements.
Chatham Township covers more than nine square miles and is home to about 10,500. It was recently named the seventh hottest market for real estate in New Jersey.
Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook