IMMIGRATION MARCH

I've had several inquiries as to why the City of Cannon Beach closed parts of Spruce and Hemlock for the immigration march that took place this last Monday. Most of the questions dealt with the political nature of the event as opposed to City-sponsored parades such as Fourth of July and Earth Day.

This type of event is allowed for in the City Code under "parades" which is defined as "a procession using the public right-of-way that consists of 20 or more persons or 3 or more vehicles". The code requires that an application be made at least 30 days in advance unless that required notice is waived by the City Manager. The code makes no distinction between a political rally and a holiday parade. The CM has the authority to consider certain factors when either issuing or denying a permit such as the potential for "unreasonable" disruption to traffic, the number of law enforcement personnel required to staff the event, etc.

The original application required the City close Hemlock from 3rd to Gower, in other words, through downtown Cannon Beach. And, because the City wasn't notified of the request until April 25th, my first inclination was to deny the permit or restrict the march to the sidewalks. However, I came to the conclusion that, because there was a large amount of advance publicity for what turned out to be a nationwide event (front page newspaper articles, flyers, TV and radio), the march was going to take place whether or not the City officially closed the streets. In addition, we had no idea how many participants would show up.

The ultimate decision was to waive the 30 days, issue the permit and allow the march but reroute it down Spruce to 1st Street and then down Hemlock. We also asked the organizers for 10 "parade leaders" to help with crowd control. So, through the requirements described above, by allowing the parade to take place on city streets, we avoided downtown, controlled the crowd better, reduced the potential for direct confrontations and reduced the amount of time the event actually took place and disrupted traffic.

Finally, although the organizers didn't file their application in a timely manner, I thought they did an excellent job organizing the march, promoting goodwill and behavior and delivering what they promised.