07/27/1981 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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., M I NUT E S . Eugene City Council City Council Chamber July 27, 1981 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Gretchen Miller, Brian Obie, Betty Smith, Mark Lindberg, D. W. Hamel, Eric Haws, Cynthia Wooten, and Emily Schue. Adjourned meeting of the City Council of the City of Eugene, Oregon, was called to order by His Honor Mayor Gus Keller. I. PUBLI C HEAR I NGS A. Parade Permit Ordinance and Administrative Rules Revision (memo, ordinance and administrative rules distributed) Micheal Gleason, City Manager, introduced Tim Sercombe, City Attorney. Mr. Sercombe stated that in fall 1979, the parade permit ordinance was revised to make it constitutional. Since that time, the Oregon ACLU hired local attorneys to review the ordinance and to take action to remedy any perceived . constitutional deficiencies during the current re-examination of the Parade Permit Ordinance. Also, the local chapter of the National Lawyers' Guild has studied the ordinance and requested various changes. Staff has met with these groups and discussed the legal principles which limit the City's discretion in this area. On the basis of staff research, staff suggests the following guide- lines to govern issuing, denying, and revoking parade permits: 1) any time discretion is vested in an official to issue, deny, or revoke parade permits, specific and definite criteria must be used to make the decision; 2) restrictions or preconditions regarding permit issuance must not be so onerous or impossible as to amount to a prior restraint on speech; and 3) the law is clear that a threat or potential of violence from spectators is insufficient reason to deny a permit . This is based on the Skokie, Illinois, Nazi demonstrations when the courts held that the Nazis could not be denied a permit solely because of the fears about violent spectators; however, intended or actual violence by the parade participants is a sufficient reason to deny or revoke a permit if those criteria are in the ordinance. The following changes will take care of most of the identified constitutional defects: 1. Section 5.500--Definition of a Parade: The current ordinance defines a parade as "a gathering of at least ten persons who travel more than 100 feet on City property for a common purpose" and it waul d be ,changed to "for a common purpose of public demonstration." This would remove gatherings that do not have any problems with attracting spectators, crowd control, or traffic, from the ordinance. . MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 27, 1981 Page 1