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Home My WebLink About08/03/2004, - RIDE ON TRANSPORTATION Ar SNO0 RIDE-ON TRANSPORTATION gon FCITYY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO AUGUST 39 2004 'Three Divisions of Ride-On: • Consolidated Transportation Service Agency(CTSA): services for social service agencies, persons with disabilities, and seniors. • Transportation Management Association (TMA):services for the general public to encourage commuters to leave their cars at home (including vanpools). • Public Contract Operations: operation of transportation services for the county, cities, or private companies. 1 1 CTSA Transportation Services • Senior Shuttle •Tri-Counties Regional Center Routes • Medi-Cal Transportation • Hospital Shuttles • CalWorks Transportation • Social Service Transportation •Worker's Compensation Transportation TMA Transportation Services • Vanpools • Airport/Amtrak Shuttles • Emergency/Guaranteed Ride Home • Children Group Shuttles • Medical Shuttles • Special Event Shuttles • Safe Ride Home • The HOP (in City of San Luis Obispo) • Lunchtime Express e Rideshare Incentives Program 2 Public Contract Services • Nipomo Transit (FY 00/01 to present) • Santa Margarita Lake Shuttle (FY 03104) THREE YEAR STRATEGIC GOAL Work with Regional Transit Authority, local jurisdictions, SLOCOG, Regional Rideshare, businesses, and organizations to improve mobility and access to goods, services, and jobs through the coordination and marketing of CTSA, TMA, and contract services in an integrated, regional transit network. 3 Contact Numbers Web Site: www.ride-on.org Phone: 541-8747 Fax: 543-2045 Safe Ride Home: 235-SAFE 4 GOOD JOBS, SMALL CLASS SIZES, & AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE For State Assembly 33rd District � c�0� SteWjenkinS � . A New Deal for Cal fomia August 3, 2004 David Romero Mayor City of San Luis Obispo Hand Delivered Subject Farmers Market Rules against distributing Bumper Stickers. Mayor Romero,and council members Schwartz, Settle, Ewan,and Mulholland As the Democratic:Candidate for your State Assembly Representative, I want to ask for your help fulfilling the oath of office you, and each of us has taken, upon taking any office of public trust. I know each of you.cherishes the duty of your oath as much as you do your own children and family. Each public servant has sworn to uphold the Constitution, and to defend it against all enemies, foreign or domestic. But those of us who have held public office know that often upholding the Constitution mean defending our charter against well intentioned actions of our friends and even friends of this great charter. While I have not chosen to print or distribute bumper stickers in my own campaign thus far, the freedom of any person to press upon their bumper a reflection of their thoughts or, the identity of their chosen candidates, must not be infringed. And that free speech right is infringed when a rule is made preventing the distribution of those stickers in the most public square of our community—San Luis Obispo's Farmer's Market. I urge each of you.to do your duty, fulfill your oath, protect your democracy and strike down this dangerous, if well intentioned, ew Jefikint, ocratic.Nominee 33nd,;State .AslLeAbiy District 1336 Morro Street San Luis Obispo CA 93401 Phones 805-541-5763 Home:805-543-6463 Fax 805-547-1608 www.electstewlenkins.org Emil:dectstewienldns@sbcglobal.net Printed on recycled paper.Labor donated.Elect Stew Jenkins for State Assembly.ID 1260412. Contributions to Political Campaigns are not tax deductible. Endorsed by Leon Panetta,former Whitehouse Chief of Staff;Bill Lockyer,Attorney General;Lois Capps,.Congresswoman;Jack O'Connell,Superintendent of Public Instruction;Shirley Bianchi, County Supervisor:UFCW;Rebecca Carey,Sana Maria; A11en Settle,San Luis Obispo Council Member,Cuesta College Federation of Teachers;California faculty Association; California Council of Democratic Clubs,partial list REPUBLICAN PARTY Republican Central Committee of San Luis Obispo County Post Office Box 1075 San Luis Obispo, California 93406 (805) 541-4010 9 Fax (805) 783-0905 August 3, 2004 Mayor David Romero City of San Luis Obispo Dear Mr. Mayor and Council Members: On behalf of the Republican Party of San Luis Obispo (RPSLO), I wish to thank you for this opportunity to present to you our position in reference to Thursday Night Promotions (Farmer's Market) and the revocation of our permit. I would like to be before you in person, but my work schedule has me in Northern California this week. We are asking that you eliminate the rule that bans stickers and adhesive materials from the Farmer's Market and immediately reinstate our permit. Our job at Farmer's Market is to register voters, engage questions, and handout candidate and party literature— in short, to exercise our right to free speech. The stickers in question, both bumper stickers and "I registered to vote" lapel stickers are essential to our business needs at the market. They provide an important mechanism to engage passers-by, draw them into our booth area and into conversation. It also becomes a mechanism for them to exercise their freedom of speech. Without both kinds of stickers, our ability to do our job is severely impacted. We believe that the rule is a solution in search of a problem. In the past it has never been enforced. Many groups hand out stickers including candidates, political organizations, merchants, SLO Police Department, and Cal-Trans. More recently in 2004, it has been inconsistently enforced, and in fact, it has only been enforced upon the Republican Party and the SLO Republican Women's Federated. During every Farmer's Market since the revocation of our permit other groups have handed out stickers, and their permits have NOT been revoked. This singling out of the Republican Party is clearly illegal. The RPSLO has had a booth and been a participant in the Farmer's Market for over 11 years, not sporadically, but consistently week after week. In that time, we have always offered stickers to the public and there has never been a complaint relative to vandalism where our stickers, or any other political groups stickers, ended upstuck° to any object downtown. This information was given to me by Mary Ann Stansfield, the previous Thursday Night Promotions employee who ran the Farmer's Market. Simply put—there is no problem. Besides, I thought the weekly fee charged for our booth was to cover any necessary cleanup of Higuera Street. The rule is also unenforceable. Since our permit has been revoked, individual members of the Republican Party have been attending Farmer's Market registering voters and handing out bumper stickers, as is clearly their constitutional right in any public place. Collectively individuals have given out more Republican bumper stickers in the last three Thursday nights at Farmer's Market than in the last six months from the booth. While at the same time, the RPSLO has not had to spend the $16 per week to sit in one spot with their booth. The rule is clearly unconstitutional. In Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147 (1939), leaflets had been distributed to announce a protest meeting. Some people threw the leaflets on the sidewalks and the street. The City then drafted an ordinance to prohibit the distribution of leaflets, on the grounds that it was a reasonable way to prevent littering. The Supreme Court stated that, "the purpose.to keep the streets clean and of good appearance is insufficient to justify an ordinance which prohibits a person rightfully on a public street from handing out literature to one willing to receive it.' The court recognized that cities have the authority to prevent littering, but that it is the people who, °actually throw papers on the street" which should be prevented and not the distributors. This opinion has been upheld again and again since 1939. Most recently, in 1994, our own California Supreme Court upheld this ruling in City of Fresno v. Press Communications, Inc., 31 Cal. App. 4"' 32 (1994). The California Supreme Court not only upheld this ruling, but it also added that if a City is going to regulate the distribution of certain kinds of publications, it must be prepared to regulate the distribution of all publications. If Thursday Night Promotions is going to prohibit the distribution of stickers, it must also be prepared to prohibit the distribution of any publication, including those distributed by non-profit organizations, PTA's, religious groups, law enforcement, everything. We are asking that the rule banning stickers be revoked and our permit immediately reinstated. To deny us our first amendment right to free speech is unnecessary, unethical and unconstitutional. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, e'-Ve�rA,/ 46VO-Xa4,a; V/4. gyp) Tom J. Bordonaro, Jr. Chair, RPSLO Cc: Bell, McAndrews and Hilltack