ACLU sues city on behalf of march

Deirdre Newman

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the city on

Thursday on behalf of organizers of the Orange County Dyke March,

calling demonstration requirements set up by the city “unreasonable”

and “unconstitutional” and criticizing the entire permit process.

The march is slated to take place Aug. 16, with a rally at noon

before the march at 5 p.m.

Organizers have been negotiating with city officials for two

months to ease the conditions. The city dropped one condition and

changed another one to give the group more privacy.

But that wasn’t enough to appease the organizers, who say they

have hit significant roadblocks in the discussions. With the march a

little more than a week away, they felt their civil rights and right

to march unencumbered were at stake, they said.

“[The city] just kept wanting more time and they’ll make tiny

concessions, but the overall tenor of it is that it’s down to 21

conditions now, and we consider that to be burdensome and

oppressive,” said Tricia Aynes, director of communications for the

Gay and Lesbian Center of Orange County, which funds the march.

Acting City Atty. Tom Wood said he hadn’t received a copy of the

lawsuit yet, but had talked to an attorney representing the

organizers.

“I’m disappointed they felt the need to sue the city,” Wood said.

“I know staff was working very conscientiously to try and resolve the

differences that became apparent during the permit process. I thought

we’d done that.”

The goal of the march is to promote visibility, empowerment and

equality for lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in the county,

according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims that the city’s permit process gives officials

too much discretion to determine the permit conditions for who can

speak in the public streets and parks, “thus allowing the city to

favor speech they support and disfavor speech they oppose.”

The committee’s first staging of the lesbian pride march last year

was controversial, as well, but organizers were able to resolve their

issues with the city when they got their desired route, which they

intend to replicate this year. The scheduled route runs from 18th

Street near Lions Park to Pomona Avenue to West 19th Street, east to

Harbor Boulevard south and ending before the Newport Boulevard

intersection.

This year, things went sour when the city approved a permit for

the march with 18 conditions. Many of those conditions are different

than the eight conditions imposed on the 2002 event, organizers said.

When members of the organizing committee met with city officials to

negotiate the conditions, they received another permit, this time

with 22 conditions.

One of them required all motorcycle riders to provide their names,

addresses and other personal information to the police in advance of

the event. When the committee protested this requirement, the city

decided to let the committee make the list and keep it, instead of

giving it to the city.

Organizers claim it still infringes on their civil liberties.

“The fact that they want us to gather personal information -- it’s

anticipating a problem,” Aynes said. “The march was very peaceful

last year. [The requirement] has a very chilling effect on our

freedom of speech, and we feel it’s just plain wrong, regardless of

how they phrase it.”

City Manager Allan Roeder said city officials, including himself,

have been working diligently to resolve differences with the

organizers. He said he couldn’t think of a group in recent memory

that has sued the city over its permit requirements. He acknowledged

that the city was not used to getting requests for street closures

during a march.

“On one hand, you can say the requirements are the same as anyone

else, like the Fish Fry,” Roeder said. “But we have not had a request

for a march where they requested closure of the streets. We have not

had anything of that nature going way back to the days of the Fish

Fry parade. That’s how far back it goes.”

Even with the submission of the lawsuit, the committee is still

interested in negotiating with the city, Aynes said.

Wood said both sides will probably end up in federal court

sometime in the next week.

“I don’t think the parade is going to be canceled, so we’ll just

have to see how it moves forward from here,” Wood said.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].