Excessive Park & Police Charges

When there are  excessive charges by public authorities/local government to march toa park or to a church won't this be the equivalent to "a poll tax" for exercisingFREEDOM OF SPEECH?  

What are the right questions for a CPRA request to identify actual attendance or real location of specific police officer charged for "assisting" a demonstration and march? Two May lst special events  were "approved" and estimated        &nb sp;  charges were $2,628 and $3,971, but became $7,776.52 and $8,015.08, respectively .(As long as unpaid since June billings each are charged an additional  3% per month or 36% interest per year. 

 I currently have the names of the police officers, their hours, rate of  pay ; events lasted approximately 4 hours and  lst had 37 police officer  and 1,000 participants and 147 hours and 2nd  37 police officer and 4,000 particiants and 126 hours.  Are there any acceptable accounting practices or other jurisdiction general/special orders thatmight provide insight re "reasonable"/"best practices"? 

 Joe Partansky,

accessJoeP@yahoo.com   (925) 524-0272  Concord/Clayton, CA

Any help, comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

(I was co-founder and operator/manager of San Francisco State College's"Free Speech Platform" in early l960's and the total construction and sound equipment was @ $2,000 and no charges for use! 

 Are there other barriers to use of public space and the streets to excerise "free speech" and petition your government, besides requiring a $1,000,000 liability policy which City must be added, application fees and public work staff hours, etc?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, see our "Top 10" list on the First Amendment at http://
www.calaware.org/downloads/Top10_FirstAmendment.pdf, which says in
part:

A speech permit or license must be available on objective, content-
neutral grounds.
To keep good order and administer public resources effectively, the State
may require a permit or license to conduct certain speech activities in
traditional public forums, for example parades, rallies or other
demonstrations. The permit regulations, like others affecting public
forum speech, must meet the time/place manner standards under 4
above.

But also, the official(s) issuing the permit must not be left with
uncontrolled discretion to grant or deny it. To avoid becoming a matter of
whim, permit regulations are required, and they must provide “narrowly
drawn, reasonable and definite standards for the officials to follow.”
Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268 (1951). The standards must be blind
to the purpose or theme of the event, focusing instead, for example, on
the number of people, the time and/or the size of the area involved.

Likewise, the fee schedule, if any, must be based on the issuing agency’s
anticipated administrative and/or public resource costs. It may not be
sensitive to the event’s purpose or theme; it cannot be allowed to
increase, for example, based on an official’s estimate of how controversial
the event may be in terms of need for added police security to protect the
marchers from a hostile mob (as opposed to added police patrols to deal
with increased traffic congestion). Forsyth County v. Nationalist
Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992).

Also subject to constitutional attack are liability insurance requirements
that are burdensome despite any history of need with respect to the
applicant, that give city officials wide discretion to set the amount of
coverage, and/or that let the private insurance market set the premium,
in effect, based on its own estimate of how controversial the applicant’s
message or theme may be. Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride Inc. v. City
of Long Beach, 14 Cal. App. 4th 312 (1993).

Finally, a total ban on wooden or other rigid handles or supports attached
to signs carried in a parade or assembly has been held unconstitutional
as lacking narrow tailoring to promote a significanpublic interest, and as
leaving open no reasonable alternatives (Edwards v. City of Coeur d’
Alene, 262 F. 3d 856 (2001)), but an ordinance limiting the thickness of
wooden sign handles to two inches by a quarter inch (with no length
limit) was upheld as a reasonable measure of violence prevention (Vlasak
v. Superior Court, 329 F.3d 683 (2003), and a limit on the size of
sidewalk picketers’ signs to three by three feet was upheld as reasonable
measure of traffic safety. Foti v. City of Menlo Park, 146 F.3d 629 (1998).

This question is asked in the abstract and can't be usefully answered.  If such an event has occurred, please describe it with full relevant details.

Nobody needs an "invitation" from a government agency or official to peaceably distribute information on public issues in a public park. The practical problem is that the people who threaten arrest in these situations have no idea of the law and no training to deal with such issues.