I just received a phone call from Dr. Arturo Lomeli, who is at the City of Santa Ana’s Cinco de Mayo event. The Santa Ana Police Department just asked the supporters of Alfredo Amezcua, who purchased a booth to promote his mayoral campaign, to take down their banners.
According to Dr. Lomeli, who is pictured in the booth in the picture above, the police department was ordered to do this by Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido.
Lomeli was told that the event is supposed to be non-political. Amezcua’s supporters were allowed to keep their campaign t-shirts on, and to give out campaign literature, but they had to take the banners down or they were going to get kicked out of the event, by the police.
Pulido will be speaking at this event, along with the other members of the City Council.
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I stopped by this booth twice and talked to Alfredo. I didn't see anything amiss.
This is definitely a 1st amendment violation which should be challenged in court. A mayor cannot be allowed to ban reasonable political speech in a booth-banner at a public event by simply declaring the event to be "non-political". Of course, the policemen had to follow orders from city government or risk being disciplined.
Mr. Amezcua is a US CITIZEN he has all the right to exercise the 1st amendment. POLITICAL OR NON POLITICAL EVENT.
What about all the protest in the country, they are all protected by the 1st amendment.
If I recall Michelle Martinez had a booth-banner, on 4th street in different events?
What's the different NOW?
If it was a non political event than why was Pulido,Benevides,Solorio, and various other politicos there? Amezcua has rights like anyone else, the plaza of the flags is a public place. Anyone can put up space there, Just like when Alex protested in front of the Amezcua Office he did not need a permit, neither does Alfred Amezcua. That's the way I feel about it. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander"!
Thanks for the interesting article.
Did Al Amesqua's supporters agree to not display banner to have a booth? If there was no requirement for them to restrict displaying the banner then why did the SAPD force them to do so?
I remain concerned that the Mayor appears to have used the SAPD for his own purposes to suppress free speech.
Given the mayor's financial backing why would he be so concerned with a single banner?
Jeff,
The irony is that Pulido's action backfired and Amezcua is now getting a lot of free press out of this. My guess is most voters won't be pleased about Pulido's tactics.
Why didn't Pulido buy a booth too? He had the chance to. He could have been there all weekend giving away Pulido shirts and balloons...
I stopped by this booth Sat and Sun, There were banners, I saw NO cops telling anyone to take anything down.
We got ballons, campang buttons, and flyers.
Alfredo was having a good time and the supporter were all smiles.
Cook,
We just reported what Dr. Lomeli told us. Take it up with him.
No wonder, I had difficulty finding the booth on Sunday. These abhorrent tactics are undemocratic, mean spirited, pity and straight out of Tricky Dicky's play book and that of the old Mexican PRI.
Cook ,
As the blog says the banner stating Amezcua for Mayor was the issue. We were told to not display the for Mayor part on the banner.
We were told by police that the city attorney had directed them to have us do that. If we did not then they were directed to close down our booth.
Police said that as the event was city run they wanted to stay focused on the bicentennial aspect and it have no politics.
I argued that we were selling a product ...Amezcua. A product similar to other vendors. We were not shouting or amplifying any political message to the crowd. I asked to see the permit contract saying the exclusion of a campaign booth. Non was produced in fact the event producers received the permit the Thursday before the Saturday opening. The event producers said they had no time to review the contract but were not aware of any agreement.
In past events many politicians and candidates have boght booths for their campaigns. The fiesta Patrias Parade is full of politicians and candidates riding in the parade and making political speeches on stage.
The selective enforcing of a made up reason is obvious.......Amezcua is the Mayor's challenger.
It is a free country where you can spend a nice family holiday to promote a product. The event was full of people promoting and selling a variety of products for gain of one form or another.
The Mayor and council, as I understand are/were scheduled to address the event attendees from the stage.
Suppressing political free speech only happens in police state governments and dictatorships inn order to suppress the public and individuals from using civic rights…campaigning against incumbents.
We do not want this in the USA.