December 10, 2005

Protest creates confusion over sign rules

Navickas brothers, policeman find out what’s legal on the Plaza, merchant gets involved

By Robert Plain
Ashland Daily Tidings

Signs hung on the plaza Friday protest the Mt. Ashland ski area expansion, leading to police intervention. Robert Plain | Ashland Daily Tidings

A protest against the Mt. Ashland ski expansion turned into a First Amendment lesson when police and a local business owners wondered if a sign could be hung from a tree on the Plaza.

Eric and Ryan Navickas on Friday hung three signs at various locations on the Plaza encouraging people not to support Mt. Ashland because, they said, the ski resort has been too aggressive in pushing forward their expansion plans.

However, not long after they set up their signs, a police officer and a downtown merchant arrived to protest the protest.

Ashland Police Department Sgt. Malcus Williams arrived first and asked the brothers if they had attained a permit to hang their signs. They said they had not, nor did they believe they needed to, pointing to a Nativity scene they thought didn’t have a permit either.

Additionally, they explained that the Plaza has been designated as a “free speech zone” where political discourse has traditionally been allowed.

Williams investigated the matter further and learned the Navickases were right on one hand and wrong on the other.

City Hall confirmed to Williams that the nativity scene did have a permit, and he asked the brothers to remove their signs.

“I have no issue with the protest,” he said. “You just can’t hang your signs from city property.”

Eric Navickas said political speech, in the form of signs, has been allowed at many other peaceful protests on the Plaza.

“I don’t want to make things difficult for you,” he told the officer, “but I’m not going to take them down.”

Williams put in a call to his superior and found out that the Navickas brothers were in the right. “Apparently this is a free speech area that does protect their signs,” he said.

However, by this point Richard Hansen, owner of Gold & Gems Fine Jewelry, a Plaza business, had joined the discussion. He contended that their sign was commercial in nature, because it was critical of a commercial enterprise.

“This, to me, is commercial,” Hansen told the officer. “It’s anti-commercial. I challenge you to say that it isn’t.”

In August 2004, Hansen’s business was forced to take down a temporary sign over the storefront alerting people to a sale.

“Could I get someone to stand out here, who doesn’t work for me, with a sign that says shop at Gold & Gems?” Hansen said. “Would a ski Mt. Ashland sign be OK?”

City Attorney Mike Franell said Hansen may have a point.

“The Plaza has historically been open to free speech,” Franell said. “The only restriction is that it doesn’t create a safety hazard, is of a temporary nature and doesn’t limit access to public pathways.”

When asked if this included commercial speech as Hansen contends, Franell indicated that it did.

Franell said the same tradition of free speech on the Plaza protected from arrest a topless women protesting the Iraq war this summer.

The Navickas brothers staged the protest to coincide with the opening day of Mt. Ashland’s ski season. They said they are encouraging people to not ski at the resort in order to make an economic statement for the people of Ashland who do not support the expansion plans.

Last fall, the U.S. Forest Service gave the resort permission to add a new lodge and new ski slopes that run into the city’s watershed. Eric Navickas has since sued the Forest Service for allowing the expansion based on “arbitrary and capricious” reasons. He believes the expansion will adversely affect Ashland’s drinking water.

“The management (of Mt. Ashland Ski and Snowboard Resort) has been so aggressive in pushing forward with its expansion plans and has been unwilling to listen to community alternatives, so we are asking people not to ski there,” he said. “From a hydrological perspective, the upper parts of the streams are the most critical to water quality and this is exactly the area they intend to impact.”

His brother added, “The truth is if the courts don’t shut down the expansion, the only thing that will is economic constraints.”

Rick Saul, a spokesman for the ski resort, disagreed. He said there has been “terrific public input in the process” in developing expansion plans and that the expansion was, in fact, environmentally sensitive.

When asked if he thought the economic boycott would affect the mountain’s business, he said, “I’ll just answer that question by saying I saw a dozen or less people on the Plaza and 800 to 1,000 skiers on the mountain.”

After the free speech debate subsided, others came and visited the table set up to detail the protesters’ thoughts on expansion.

Stephen Casey and Petey Lau, both skiers who moved to Ashland about a year ago, said they had heard about the expansion plans from the various and conflicting bumper stickers around Ashland but they both said they needed more information.

“My first thought was that I’m for expansion,” Casey said. “But obviously, I have ecological concerns I want to see addressed. I don’t know enough about it.”

Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 3040 or bplain@dailytidings.com.