October 23, 2009 – Daily Brief

Indians vs. Cowboys? Its the battle of the AV vs. the Chess Club this year Jeff. Canyon got spanked by the Vikings last week and the Indians dread their upcoming visit to the woodshed!!!

Please inform the readers about the Fat Tire Festival in Castaic this Sunday. Lots of fun and interesting stuff for the whole family. http://www.corbamtb.com

I can really relate to the Rubin’s adoption experience. Our experience for our first child who was adopted was very similar but not as intense as the Rubin’s. Our first son is now 21 and trying to get in touch with his birth mother. As to their statement that there is no difference in adopting or having one naturally I can clearly vouch for that. We had a miracle happen and my wife gave birth to our second son 13 months after adopting the first. There is no difference – they are both 100% our sons. In fact the adopted one is more like me than the genetically linked one – go figure.

Jim: I agree! Three out of our five children don’t carry my DNA and I don’t ever think about it until I read or hear about an adoption (like this) and then I really have to concentrate to remember which ones are adopted.

On signs: EVERY professional campaigner I have ever spoken with states that signs have ABSOLUTELY NO marginal effect on the outcome of a local election, yet we see them every time. I think the legitimate purpose is to really provide affirmation to the people who already support a candidate and keep them enthused.

I’m a bit perplexed by the Signal article on the candidate signs. Why are candidates allowed to break city ordinance without penalty? Why is the lighthearted look at this issue and money and tax payer dollars spent on cleaning the signs up accepted without nary a thought? How lubricious is it that candidates ADMIT to spending extra money on signs they KNOW they city will take down? Disqualify just one candidate for breaking this ordinance and I guarantee they would stop. But why would we even want these officials on our ballot if they can’t follow simple city ordinance?

Scott, you would be surprised how many people refuse to follow simple city ordinances. These are the same folks that when they get caught make a big stink and cry foul. I think they fail to remember that these ordinances were enacted because the citizens asked for relief from some issue or other, whether it is signs, constantly barking dogs, illegal construction, or whatever. If all you had to do was ask someone to please stop allowing something that was a nuisance and they complied, we would not need any ordinances, Animal Control, Sherrif’s or even Code Enforcement. Whatever happened to the concept of a being a good neighbor and respecting the rights of OTHERS, not just your own.

Scott: Two problems with hanging it on the candidates. Many of the signs are put up by volunteers that are outside of the candidate’s control under any reasonable interpretation. Also, imposing punitive fines on the candidates could be interpreted as a “chilling” or prior restraint on First Amendment rights. (Remember, political speech has more protection than commercial speech.)

“Scott, you would be surprised how many people refuse to follow simple city ordinances.” And what I find interesting is who some of these people are. Joe Messina? Isn’t he the prayer breakfast organizer? Joe has been a candidate in 3 elections and knows the ropes. Joe is simply ignoring the rules, which is certainly not honorable, and Joe makes a big deal about praying in public. Same goes for Joe’s telephone smear campaign against Hart School Board candidate Susan Soloman. Not a very Christian way to behave, especially for a prayer breakfast organizer. Joe Messina knowingly puts up illegal signs, lies about other candidates, then throws a splashy prayer breakfast to show everyone he is a good Christian in spite of his very unchristian behavior.

seems silly to me. why go through the trouble of removing them if you are going to openly acknowledge that they will go back up, that no enforcement will occur and that the signs can be claimed by their owner? All in the name of aesthetics? Let the signs stay up. Effective or no, they are part of our democracy and textbook examples of pure speech. Make late removal penalties as punitive as you like, but no monkeying around right now. Do you think they’d do the same to Mayor Dude’s signs? Let’s no forget that nearly all of the high-visibility private property is owned by very large businesses, many of whom have interests before these boards, agencies, etc.. That creates a built-in bias towards frontrunners and incumbents who are more likely to receive the favor.

Tim, et all.. appreciate the insightful replies, much to be said on this topic for sure. Tim, the one comment I have in repsonse to yours is that the article certinly did not cover any aspect of voluenteer interaction in this and the candidates themselves pretty much said they knew the signs were put up and that they would need further signs to replace ones taken. Sure, anyone could tamper with signs, anyone could put up signs in forbidden locations to hurt other candidates which is what makes this issue tough to deal with. How do you make it fair, equal and beneficial for all? Hate to lean this way, but it seems like with all the arguments that maybe we need designated sign areas (2-3 large intersections, property owners get paid, all candidates can put same size sign there) or no signs at all. I just wanted to point out the issue of these potential civic leaders thumbing their noses at ordinances and proving how with power and money anyone can be above the law.

JC In defense of Joe, he is a very earnest and kind man and sincere in his beliefs, but like any human the best intentions can sometimes backfire.

Sticking the signs in planters and medians, etc., is one thing but puting them on telephone poles and street signs is a total safety hazard and one of the things that is profoundly stressed in the candidate handbooks.

Navigator: I haven’t really seen any on POWER poles (Valencia is 100% fiber optics for telephone and broadband) or street signs. Where should I look?

I don’t see much of a conflict here. When balancing other public interests against the right to free speech, only public safety should cause us to blink. Any signs that could endanger the public should be outlawed, but pesky little ordinances about landscape standards do not hold equal weight, not even close.

The governments ability to limit free speech is suspect in the time period preceeding election. Why are so many citizens willing to surrender their first amendment right to governmental authority? Political speech and advocacy should not be limited tp private property-it needs to extend to the public square.

Oh Jesus, Petz….. Suspect?

Why can’t the entrenched politicos distinguish between commercial and political speech ? Is it an effort to extend their incumbency and thwart opposition? These same politicos and the law enforcement agency are contemptuous of those who have political signs stolen from private property clearly in violation of 1st Amendement rights and private property laws.

rare that I say this, but Petz, I’m with you 100%

Petz and Mike: It did chill me to the bone when I read Gail Ortiz’s assertion that the CPO’s would remove signs from “public” property. Would they “remove” someone who was walking up and down the sidewalk in front of the City Hall or in a park with a politician’s sign? Some of the folks on this board would think that is entirely proper. It was only a few years ago when Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed a member of the media (Tim Whyte) and removed him from the Hart campus at the behest of school personnel trying to suppress information concerning a fight and subsequent riot. Some people on this board would think that right and proper. By the way, when Petz and I agree on something, it is game, set and match!!!

JC wrote: “Joe Messina knowingly puts up illegal signs, lies about other candidates, then throws a splashy prayer breakfast to show everyone he is a good Christian in spite of his very unchristian behavior.” it’s funny to see that he is endorsed by scott wilk, another “christian” who cares nothing about the moral values of the religion he professes. this entire group of men is an insult to the faith. to sell out your entire belief system in hope of a paycheck makes you a judas, not a christian.

catalyst, Just one reason the Founding Fathers separated ‘church and state’ knowing full well what happens when you don’t . . . Being a Christian or anythng else doesn’t guarantee you have a clue about solving our common problems. In other words, being able to recite regilous scripture and slogans doesn’t mean you understand economics, business management or indeed possess common sense. Thus running on religion can produce the more dire of consequences. I never vote for anyone based on their ‘private and personal’ religious beliefs, ever.

The signs on the street corners were changing all day. I saw the Hart District has a bandit banner hanging on the fence opposite the metrolink entrance on Soledad. Gail Ortiz is a Soviet style apparatchik. She tried to stop me from gathering petition signatures at Veteran Historical Plaza and Central Park. One call to the City attorney set her straight. These public servants need to be brought down a notch. Their smugness really bothers me.

Plastering signs on public property is not free speech.

oh, ok. i retract my entire argument.

Here is some case law says that Scott Berry is wrong. http://www.mrsc.org/Publications/mrnews/articles/politicalcampaignsignssep07.aspx

How about some happy news? Read the information at TimBen.com!

There is no happy news if Josh Premako is the Opinion Czar at The Signal.

In 1993, the state supreme court addressed the issue of a local government’s ability to regulate temporary political signs within the public right-of-way, and, specifically, the area of the parking strip.3 In Collier v. City of Tacoma, city workers had removed the campaign signs of a candidate for Congress from residential yards and parking strips in accordance with two Tacoma ordinances that restricted the preelection posting of political signs in such areas to a 60-day period prior to an election. The state supreme court held this restriction to be unconstitutional under both the federal and state free speech protections. The court first determined that the Tacoma ordinances restricted political speech, which is entitled to the “fullest and most urgent” constitutional protection, and that parking strips – the area between the streets and sidewalks – constitute a “traditional public forum” that occupies “a special position in terms of First Amendment protection, [where] the government’s ability to restrict expressive activity is very limited.”4

Better read the case again, it’s not as cut and dry as you want to make it sound, but good try.

[IMG]http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb105/Petz2/1025090722a.jpg[/IMG]

funny how legitimate campaign signs are verboten, but the city ran a “Thanks Buck” banner in an election year, at no charge to the cmapaing and in a spot where no other campaign signs would be allowed, all for legislation he never got to committee. Also consider that the city has spent who knows how much for what amounts to a personal PR campaign for Frank Ferry this year.

Indy : you might need to research the actual origins of “separation of church and state” before you start pinning the current meaning TODAY on the Founding Fathers. Most misquoted and out of context phrase in our sad culture.

Indy never let’s the facts get in the way of the rants.

SCVFan says: Indy : you might need to research the actual origins of “separation of church and state” before you start pinning the current meaning TODAY on the Founding Fathers. Most misquoted and out of context phrase in our sad culture. Yes, most religious conservative including Petz like to make this standard remark that the Founding Fathers in the ‘originalist’ Constitution (the document itself), the ‘law of the land’, included a Bill of Rights where the 1st Amendment made it clear that government can’t ‘endorse’ religion thus it’s separate from the ‘laws’ as embodied in the Constitution. The problem I see is that religious conservatives keep trying to ‘rewrite’ the Constitution in their ‘under God’ viewpoint . . . which simply doesn’t fly. Even the Supreme Court whose job it is to interpret the Constitution has supported the separation for some 200 plus years . . . In any event, you can believe what you want but I suggest to the other readers, just go read the Constitution including the Amendments and decide who’s bs’ing who . . .

Tim Myers – Drive down Lyons Ave and a couple of the adjacent streets and you will find Mesina signs as well as others attached to anything taller than a blade of grass.