Comments on: ‘Arts Alive’ censorship attracts the attention of the ACLU

By: markscoular

markscoular — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 23:53:44 +0000

This reminds me of the Karl Rove quote that “Our administration (W) represents those that voted for us”.

I guess the rest of the voters not voting for Stocks, Bond, Gaspar and their recently appointed lock-stepper don’t count.

Incredible Tea-Party tactics in action.

By: No honor

No honor — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:17:15 +0000

This whole issue began when four community organizations, who have benifited our city for many years, merely wished to dedicate this years Arts Alive Banners to a fallen comrade that had served our community for over a decade, served as mayor twice when her established mayoral rotation came about,(http://www.theleucadiablog.com/2010/12/jim-says-dont-leave-barth-in-cornrows.html), received more votes when she ran for council, fought for openness and fairness and died while serving her community. This was a very natural and appropriate gesture.
There is no doubt that Mr. Stocks was the one that used his power to have the banner permit, with Mrs Houlihan’s image, rejected, as he had the citizen’s memorial event park permit for Mrs Houlihan rejected. Citizens held the memorial in spite of the city rejecting the park permit.
There never was any political reason to honor Mrs Houlihan. It was appropriate.
Mr. Stocks has shown no honor in his dispicable actions in this issue.

By: Lynn Marr

Lynn Marr — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 08:22:54 +0000

At last night’s Council Meeting Kristin Gaspar stated no vote was taken by Council re not allowing Maggie Houlihan’s image to be displayed. Surely, those in the audience were well-informed enough to realize that staff, including the City Manager, would NOT have made an unilateral determination that the banners were “political,” with Maggie’s image printed on the back. I had objected, initially, that a beloved ex mayor and council member’s image is NOT political. However, I before had not realized that Encinitas Municipal Code does NOT make any specific reference to “political” representations or images. To interpret the code in this manner, without any public hearing or open Council discussion is disingenuous, deceitful, and a violation of our First Amendment Rights.

In addition to Coast Law Group and the ACLU, I would recommend that Ian Thompson might contact the First Amendment Coalition of California. I feel certain they also would be supportive of the fact that Maggie Houlihan’s image on the back of the banners does not violate Encinitas Code or any specific policy. On the contrary, banning Maggie’s printed image absolutely does violate the First Amendment, as any citizen, or first year law student can clearly understand. More and more voters in Encinitas are becoming aware of the petty politics being played by Jerome Stocks and his seeming puppet, Kristin Gaspar.

Obviously, the City Manager did not make his decision, in a vacuum, determining that the banners could not be permitted to be displayed with Maggie’s likeness on the back, as a tribute. Apparently, he got his direction from Jerome Stocks, our current mayor.

However, we continue to hope that our new city manager will learn to be more thoughtful and to think independently, to be so bold as to suggest, WITHOUT OUR HAVING TO RESORT TO THREATS OF LAWSUITS, that our city code does NOT refer, anywhere, to banning images on “political grounds,” and that our city’s doing so would serve to further alienate the public by denying us our freedom of expression, when that expression clearly causes no harm. This is another example of Jerome’s arrogant, insulting behavior. From our perspective, he dishonors himself, and cannot touch Maggie Houlihan, who is beyond his self-interested small mindedness.