"Our pages must be made available to everyone"

On April 1, 2024, three months into the term, the City of Troy issued a press release. It said a review of the city’s Facebook page had found more than fifty resident accounts that the previous administration had blocked. The new administration unblocked all of them and published the principle behind it.

Our pages must be made available to everyone, regardless of their personal opinions… People should not be punished for that.

The city has not withdrawn that policy. What follows is what has gone out over those same channels since.

Since then, the city’s own channels have called the council liars

November 4, 2025. Democrats win the City Council. Mantello posts to Facebook that “we are fighters here in Troy and will not become a socialist city despite the city, county, state and country legislative movement.” She describes some voters as backing a “socialist agenda.” Recorded by the Times Union.

January 21, 2026. A City of Troy press release answers the council under the heading “Sue Steele and the Democratic Majority.” That is the government channel, not the campaign one. It calls their statements “not misunderstandings - they are blatant lies,” alleges a “misinformation campaign,” and closes: “I am done playing political games with the Democratic Council.”

January 2026. The city’s own social media accounts accuse council Democrats of trying to “obstruct” the Frear Park “project and city finances.” Steele told the Times Union the city Facebook page was being used as a political tool. The mayor defended naming the council members’ party.

January 23, 2026. From her personal Facebook account, after a council meeting: “Last (night) disappointingly the new council showed disrespect and displayed misogynistic behavior.”

March 2026. Residents and council members trying to end the Flock contract are described as moving to “defund our police department.”

March 31, 2026. Flock critics become “a small but highly vocal group” whose opposition rests on “intimidation tactics and misinformation.”

May 4, 2026. An official City of Troy release labels the council’s proposed ALPR restrictions “Pro-Criminal.” The mayor calls the legislation “dangerous, misguided, and a gift to criminals” and says the council is serving a “national agenda to score political points.”

Six of those seven went out over channels the taxpayer pays for: troyny.gov, the city’s Facebook page, and the city’s Instagram.

A candidate can call her opponents liars, but a city cannot

A candidate can call her opponents liars. A city cannot. When the words go out over troyny.gov, the city’s Facebook, or the city seal, it is the government talking, and the people it is talking about pay for it.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2024, in Lindke v. Freed, on when an official’s page counts as government speech. It counts when the official had authority to speak for the government there and was using it that way. That test exists because a personal account is a hard case.

A press release on troyny.gov, issued by the Office of the Mayor, is not a hard case. Six of the seven above went out that way.

The precedent everyone reaches for here is Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump. In 2019 the Second Circuit held 3-0 that blocking critics from @realDonaldTrump violated the First Amendment. It ruled that way because the account was a primary channel for official government business. Worth stating precisely: the Supreme Court vacated that judgment as moot in April 2021 after Trump left office, so it is not binding law. Lindke is.

What the record shows

The administration also blocks residents from the page carrying the mayor’s title. The only social media policy the city has produced is a 2022 draft. It tells staff not to post content from elected officials’ personal or campaign accounts on city accounts. The city holds no record of which accounts speak for the Mayor’s Office. Both are set out in Blocked from the mayor’s page.

None of what is on this page is in dispute, because the administration published it itself. The city channels that “must be made available to everyone, regardless of their personal opinions” have since described the council president as a liar. They have described the opposing party by name and its legislation as “Pro-Criminal.” They have described residents at a public meeting as a “small but highly vocal group” trading in “intimidation tactics.”