I think going ahead as planned is the way to go.
On Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 4:39 PM Berkeley Brown <broccolibatiks@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hey Everyone. Tanya gave us her update last night but didn’t get any
feedback. After speaking with her today, we decided that I’d recap and ask
anyone who wants to “speak now or forever hold your peace”… so to speak…
The town of West Jefferson will have 2 police officers on duty during our
event. They will be on duty for the town, not for our event per say.
Brantley, the town manager, said that we would need to fill out the permit
for a march/protest, if we want more cops around. He also said we could
not have signs.
This goes back to the original issue of first amendment rights on public
property. ACLU says people have the right to stand on public sidewalk and
protest with a sign. I don’t know if the park falls under that same 1st
amendment right or not? Nonetheless, we did not plan our event to be a
march or a protest and I personally wasn’t planning to bring a sign. Just
annoying that they are throwing that out there AGAIN….
So the question is…. Does anyone have strong feelings about the need to
fill out the OTHER permit to get more cops around?
Tanya and I both feel fine moving forward as is. My personal thought is
that doing so may attract more negative attention. If there’s an
emergency, the sherifs department is of course around with all their
units.
There’s probably not a “right” or a “wrong” way to go but we’d appreciate
thoughts from others with a vested interest.
Thank you in advance for those thoughts, Berkeley
