Eagle Mountain has slammed the door of City Hall shut, leaving good sense and democracy out in the cold.

The City Council voted 3-2 for an ordinance saying that only the mayor (or a designated surrogate) may grant permission for local groups to use space in the building. Now, instead of having a public facility available for equal opportunity public use, the mayor can be as arbitrary and capricious as he likes.

City attorney Jerry Kinghorn and city manager John Hendrickson said that space must be available to all groups or to none to steer clear of discrimination charges. They apparently don't want any views they disagree with to be expressed within the hallowed hall.

But what about the Girl Scoutsfi That's just one group that would like to use the building because meeting space is hard to find in Eagle Mountain. A local troop has been trying to arrange it for five years. They've offered to clean the place up. But they've run into a brick wall.

We're not for discrimination, which is why we're especially surprised by the new ordinance. Now the building will be available to none except those who please the mayor.

Are a majority of the city council worried that some wild-eyed extremist group will use City Hall and that this will make them look like kooks, toofi We see little danger of that. Eagle Mountain's reputation is secure.

But even if they did, so whatfi Government assets are jointly owned by all and ought to be available to all, without regard to the messages being conveyed at gatherings. Eagle Mountain officials don't need to get into the business of suppressing speech with which they disagree.

The situation might be different if Eagle Mountain were a long-developed city dotted with community centers and other venues. In that case, the loss of access to City Hall wouldn't cause much harm. But rapid population growth has outpaced the building of civic amenities, and City Hall is a community asset that ought to be made available.

It would be appropriate to ask for a reasonable fee to cover utilities or cleaning, a cash deposit as a hedge against possible damage, and perhaps liability insurance. But banning the public is just plain wrong.

Yet a ban was apparently high in the minds of those pushing this ridiculous law.

Councilman David Lifferth said the ordinance was passed in response to one of the city's many bizarre political spectacles. He and mayor-elect Heather Jackson held a news conference before the November election to fight a phony campaign ad. Mayor Don Richardson and Hendrickson even admit they wrote the ordinance to prevent such news conferences.

Such pettiness never fails to astonish us. The holding of an event at a city building doesn't imply that the city endorses the event any more than a TV reporter posing outside the White House is endorsing the president.

Here's the cherry on top: The ordinance calls for fines up to $1,000, and up to six months in jail for violators.

Kinghorn said the ordinance makes Eagle Mountain the first city in Utah County to threaten jail time for misuse of a public building. We'd guess it's the first city in the whole United States, because nowhere else across the fruited plain would anyone think of trying to imprison someone for allowing Rotary or the Women's Garden Club to assemble.

Most of all, the new ordinance underscores arrogance. City Hall doesn't belong to the City Council and mayor; it's the people's building. The officials are only using it temporarily -- before they get voted out of office or fake their own kidnappings. They should think of themselves as house-sitters. If the real owners want to use a room, they ought to be allowed.

Pomposity is particularly silly in small towns, where people know each other and regularly interact. If there's anyplace where elected officials ought to be friendly, informal and magnanimous in promoting community goodwill, you'd think it would be Eagle Mountain.

But no. Puny politics still rule in the quirky burg.

Do you agree?