Thread: Minuteman Cancellation Triggers Free Speech Grumbles

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/06 ... 203542.txt

Minuteman cancellation triggers free speech grumbles
June 20, 2005
By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer

ENCINITAS ---- City of Encinitas and county sheriff's officials were accused Monday of squashing First Amendment rights after demanding that a local political club pay $15,000 for security to allow a controversial leader of the anti-illegal-immigration Minuteman Group to speak.

Craig Nordal, leader of the neophyte North Coast Republican Club, said the club voted Monday to indefinitely postpone Wednesday's political fund-raising talk by Jim Gilchrist, leader of the Minuteman Project.

Gilchrist and the Minuteman Project caused a national furor in April when they sent volunteers into the Arizona desert near Tombstone to look for illegal immigrants trying to cross into the United States. Immigration-rights critics called the project vigilantism that was making border problems worse.

Nordal said city and sheriff's officials were so concerned that Gilchrist would draw protesters to the Encinitas Community Center that they told the club they would have to hire an entire platoon of sheriff's deputies ---- 48 in all ---- to provide security. Nordal said the $15,000 price tag was impossible for the club to swallow.

"I don't blame the city of Encinitas or the sheriff's department," Nordal said. "But the effect is that our First Amendment right is being squelched."

Gilchrist also objected, and blamed the city, the sheriff's department and protesters who would intimidate people to keep them away.

"It's a blatant attempt to suppress freedom of assembly," Gilchrist said. "It's getting more and more obvious to me that our First Amendment has pretty much been compromised by the people who will kill you, or beat you up, or show up and smash car windows with bricks. This is serious. It's no longer a country ruled by law."

City of Encinitas officials did not return several phone calls Monday.

Lt. Don Fowler, second in command at the sheriff's Encinitas station, said the department and city routinely charged groups when their events required "extra" security beyond normal police protection.

Nordal said he understood the city's security concerns, and that he notified the FBI and the sheriff's department when Gilchrist agreed to come to Encinitas to speak.

Encinitas is one of nine cities in the county that hires the sheriff's department to provide law enforcement.

Fowler said the city was within its rights to charge a fee because it was an event that would have taken place at a city facility ---- the community center.

"If this was on private property, it would be different," Fowler said. "I understand the unhappiness. But the intent was not to prohibit free speech."

Like Nordal and Gilchrist, Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition said he was troubled by the city's action.

Scheer said it was reasonable for the city to charge groups for security measures if they were holding them on city-owned property.

But Scheer added that there is an expectation that the cost won't be so high that it discourages events from taking place.

"When the American Communist Party or the Ku Klux Klan go marching down the avenues of New York City, there are police around ---- and that cost can't just be shifted to the sponsors of the events," Scheer said.

Scheer said shifting those costs would effectively prevent controversial events ---- protected by the First Amendment's right to free speech and free assembly.

He said cities and towns have to pick up some of the tab.

"It's the cost of doing business under the U.S. Constitution," Scheer said.

Fowler said city and sheriff's officials were concerned that the high cost of security would effectively censure events.

But he said Gilchrist and anti-illegal-immigration leaders had attracted violent protests in the past, and that the demand for a "platoon" to provide security was reasonable.

Gilchrist said he was too busy to mount a fight with Encinitas officials.

Nordal noted that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and President George W. Bush have lauded the Minuteman movement. He said his club hoped to use Gilchrist's speaking engagement to raise money for local Republican efforts.

He said his club still planned to have Gilchrist speak in Encinitas, and would search for a private venue.

"Again, I don't want to come across as anti-sheriff and anti-city of Encinitas," Nordal said. "But one way or another, we'll get this thing done."

Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.

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This is a TRAVESTY The government against the citizens. Plain and Simple. This is blatant denial of the First Amendment. Where are All Communist Lunatics United now?

This is a TRAVESTY The government against the citizens. Plain and Simple. This is blatant denial of the First Amendment. Where are All Communist Lunatics United now?