http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-775674.html

ACLU sues city over alleged excessive fees for immigration march


By TIM WHITMIRE : Associated Press Writer
Oct 4, 2006 : 5:57 pm ET

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The city of Asheville charged exorbitant permit fees for a political rally by supporters of immigration reform, according to a lawsuit the legal arm of the American Civil Liberties Union's North Carolina chapter said it filed Wednesday.

The May 1st We Are One America Committee was charged $1,500, much of it for services the group did not request or need for its peaceful rally, supporters said Wednesday.

Asheville city attorney Bob Oast did not return a telephone call seeking comment about the lawsuit. The clerk's office in Asheville federal court was closed before the filing could be confirmed and the lawsuit hadn't been posted Wednesday on the court's electronic system.

The suit seeks reimbursement of the permitting fee and a ruling that the provision of Asheville's city code governing such permits is unconstitutional.

"It (a permit fee) can vary, but $1,500 is just outrageous," ACLU-NC legal program coordinator Katherine Lewis Parker said in a telephone interview from her Raleigh office. "It's very clear from the correspondence that these city officials were making this up as they went along."

The Asheville event was part of a coordinated series of events May 1 across North Carolina and the nation aimed at demonstrating the importance of immigrants to the United States economy and society.

In a statement, rally organizer Danielle Fernandez said her group had to scramble at the last moment to pay the permit fees imposed by the city.

"(We) want to make sure that the city doesn't do this again to any other groups or individuals seeking to exercise their free speech rights in Asheville," she said.

"People's ability to exercise their constitutional rights to freedom of speech in America should not be contingent upon their ability to pay exorbitant, unnecessary fees," Parker said.

According to the group and the ACLU, the We Are One America Committee was charged: $1,000 for police protection it did not request; $100 to rent Pack Square, where a post-march rally was held; $150 for the city's projected loss of parking meter fees; and $250 for barricades.

Though there were no reports of disorder at the event, Parker said police anticipated major problems.

"There was a lot of concern" about having enough officers at the event, she said. "(One) of the concerns was that there was going to be a likelihood of counterprotesters."

The ACLU's suit, filed by cooperating attorney Fred Goldsmith of Marion, says that Asheville's code governing permitting for such marches is similar to an ordinance struck down in 1992 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Forsyth County, Ga., vs. Nationalist Movement.

In that case, which grew out of a planned protest against the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, the high court found that the Constitution requires "narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards" for setting permit fees and that administrators should not be given unbridled discretion in such decisions.

Parker said that ruling also found administrators may not take into account the content of the message being delivered at a march or rally in setting fees, because that would violate the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment.

When you do that, Parker said, "What you're saying is, 'You have to pay more because your speech is unpopular.'"