Cda Votes For Parade Control Permits Won’T Cost More, But City Can Decide Location

The price of a Lake City parade permit isn’t going to increase, the City Council decided in a unanimous vote Tuesday.

But the city can move the Aryan Nations parade from last year’s location on Sherman Avenue to any place it deems more appropriate under a new parade law the council adopted. And paraders will have to deal with a much more extensive application process.

After a half-hour executive session, the council stripped sections of the new measure requiring organizations holding parades to pay for additional police patrols, street cleanup and other costs. If the fees had been adopted, the annual Kiddie Parade, for example, would have cost organizers $776 instead of the normal $100. A permit for the Lake City Homecoming Parade would have been $862.

“We felt that was an undue burden,” council President Nancy Sue Wallace said.

Earlier in the meeting, the organizer of one children’s parade warned the council that the proposed fees would kill her plans for this summer’s event.

“In order to prevent events that promote a negative consensus, I worry that we will force the good, positive events from happening downtown because the costs will be prohibitive for small, nonprofit groups,” said Iris Siegler of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children. “We are a small parade. … We don’t make a mess, we don’t instill hate or violence, and our participants are mainly children.”

The association has been having parades since 1985.

The Coeur d’Alene Downtown Association had asked the council not to make a decision on the new parade law until its board had a chance to study the measure.

Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler, who had a front row seat at the council meeting, objected to the new law - even after the council dropped the price increases. “This is the first time in history the First Amendment has been outlawed by the City Council,” said Butler, who was accompanied by six people - some of them tape-recording and videotaping the meeting. He also questioned the council’s motive in passing the new law months after he applied for a parade permit.

The Aryan Nations would have had to pay an estimated $3,800 to have their parade if the fee structure had been approved. That amount is still far short of the estimated $100,000 city and county law enforcement spent dealing with the 1998 parade.

The city has not yet made a decision on Butler’s application for another march this summer.

The new law was drafted by Seattle constitutional law expert Steve Burman for $40,000. Half of the cost was paid by Coeur d’Alene tourism tycoon Duane Hagadone, who threatened to sue the city if it issued another parade permit to the Aryan Nations. Hagadone did not return calls asking for comment on the new law.

The council unanimously approved two other parade-related laws Tuesday.

One bans any weapons within 1,000 feet of a parade and prohibits bystanders from using sticks or other hard materials to hold up signs at parades. It also outlaws signs made of any hard material.

The other new law makes it a misdemeanor to cross police barrier tape.

The American Civil Liberties Union is keeping a close eye on the new measures. Last week, the Idaho chapter of the ACLU questioned whether the proposed fees would chill free speech. The ACLU also says the restrictions on sign sticks may not pass legal muster.