When Bill Adams volunteered to help an activist group organize a demonstration in Binns Park last year against the Iraq War, he didn't know what he was getting into.
Pam Adams, whose brother Brent Adams died in Iraq, addresses the crowd at Binns Park in March during
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The Millersville resident, then a relatively new member of Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice, found the city's application process for a demonstration permit to be complicated.
Really complicated.
Expensive, too.
And a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union says the city's permit process is unconstitutional.
"It's unacceptable," said Mary-Catherine Roper, a staff attorney for the eastern Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU.
Several parts of Chapter 210 of the Lancaster city code, which contains permit policies for public events, gatherings and rallies, have been changed by the city solicitor's office in the past year.
City solicitor Robert Pfannebecker said last week that the process is still a work in progress, but "it's 99 percent there."
"We've made a lot of accommodations," he said. "The final document will speak for itself."
The city has made progress in revising the code, Roper said, but she added that provisions asking for hundreds of dollars in deposits and fees for police protection are unconstitutional.
The final version of the permit policy will be made available online and to the public late this week, said Mayor Rick Gray's chief of staff, Pat Brogan.
Free speech, high costIn all, the city wanted about $2,000 for fees and liability insurance coverage for the March 2007 peace rally in Binns Park.
There was one problem: LCPJ, a local nonprofit organization, didn't have that kind of money in its budget.
"Free speech-oriented groups don't have the [deep] pockets and can't afford those types of fees," Adams said.
After several conversations with Gray and Brogan, the group was granted an insurance fee waiver. Even so, Adams said, the group had to pay the city more than $900 in deposits and fees to hold its demonstration in the park.
Adams contacted the ACLU while planning the 2007 rally. Roper wrote the solicitor and mayor's office, asking for several revisions — including removing the requirement for demonstrators to pay for liability insurance — a provision that Roper said was discriminatory.
"Insurance is inherently more expensive for the unpopular viewpoint," Roper said. "The city should foot that bill. [The city] cannot make the cost of public speaking more expensive for people who have unpopular viewpoints."
The city relented in 2008, removing many of its cumbersome requirements, including a provision asking for prior review of any pamphlets that were to be handed out during an event.
"They kind of mellowed [in 2008] and took the most egregious things out of the policy," Adams said.
He said the group wound up paying a little more than $400 in deposits and fees this year for the demonstration, held in Binns Park and at Southern Market Center.
LCPJ has hosted its annual peace rally in Binns Park every March since the group's founding in early 2003.
"The [LCPJ] has never been denied use of city facilities," Brogan said.
Adams replaced Matt Smucker as the LCPJ's organizer in 2007. Smucker worked with Gray in 2006.
Though the Gray administration has insisted on keeping a uniform code to enforce consistency, Smucker said it has been anything but.
Smucker added: "With all the stuff, there's double standards."
Smucker said that in the past, there had been no way to differentiate between commercial events and political demonstrations protected by the First Amendment.
Brogan believes the policies are necessary to enforce orderly use of the city's public spaces.
"What we want to do is make sure public spaces, including parks and public facilities, can be reserved for exclusive use," Brogan said. "The extent of the city's role is to manage the resources and allocate them in a way that's not arbitrary."
Access deniedThere have been instances in which people wanting to use public space for an event have been rebuffed.
Barry Russell, a city resident, said the mayor's office denied his gay rights group, Rainbow Rose Community, permission to use Binns Park for an arts and entertainment festival in June 2007.
Under the code, the city required paperwork to be completed 30 days before the event. The city has since changed the requirement to 14 days, and now also allows exceptions for people to assemble protests with two days' notice.
Groups seeking the exception have to show that there's a First Amendment necessity to stage a protest. Reaction to a timely political event, for example, would qualify under the exception.
Russell admits that there were problems with his application. The code, as it was written in 2007, required applicants to buy $2 million in liability insurance coverage, which equates to about $1,000 in insurance premiums depending on the size and duration of the event.
Russell didn't complete information on the form about insurance, and couldn't comply with a requirement to provide copies of any written materials that were going to be distributed.
Russell said the city asked that at least $3,000 be paid toward covering liability insurance, police coverage and street closings. Because his was a fairly new group, Russell said, there just wasn't enough money to cover those costs.
In June, the city's first gay pride event, Lancaster Pride 2008, was held in Buchanan Park with the city's blessing and police protection. The event was not sponsored by Russell's group.
'Hopelessly complicated'A letter from the ACLU to the city dated April 14, 2008, said the city's policy was "hopelessly complicated and cumbersome."
Brogan believes the process has taken too long, and part of the dissatisfaction with the city stems from that.
"It always takes a long time when you have more people involved," she said. "The good news is that we've made changes."
The most up-to-date copy of the permit application sent to the Sunday News last week by the mayor's office still runs afoul of free speech and assembly rights, Roper said.
The city's new 11-page permit application stands in contrast to other cities' constitutional policies, Roper said.
Philadelphia, for example, has a two-page form for groups wanting to host public demonstrations. The form asks for contact information and a description of the size and duration of the event.
There is no cost to reserve public spaces in Philadelphia. Applicants there pay a $20 processing fee and rental fees for sound or stage equipment.
Brogan said that the cost of providing safety and road closings has factored into the city's considerations.
"When we have to staff an event, we can't just charge it to the taxpayer," she said.
In York, fees vary depending on the venue, but its form is only three pages.
Lancaster requires that applicants pay a deposit for its larger public areas. At Binns Park, a $100 deposit is required. At Buchanan Park, a $100 fee is levied for each day of an event, in addition to a $500 deposit.
"You can't charge hundreds of dollars to have a rally in a park," Roper said, adding that charging money beyond administrative and processing fees violates free speech rights. "Parks are supposed to be free. That's what they're there for."
Though Brogan said the final version of the city code will include a waiver clause, which would allow groups of citizens or groups who demonstrate a financial need to forgo the more expensive fees.
"Why can't you have a fairly simple form?" Roper asked.
"Philly has a simple form. Why is life so hard in Lancaster?"
Paul Franz is a Sunday News staff writer. Contact him at pfranz@lnpnews.com or at 295-5063.
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