In late November it was brought to township manager Kathy Berger’s attention that someone was protesting in the Medford Village area.
Berger decided to bring this news to the township chief of police, Richard Meder, but by the time officers had arrived on scene, the protest had already dispersed.
According to Berger, it turned out to be a small group protesting about the climate.
“That one past and we didn’t think it was a big deal,” Berger said.
However, since then, the township has received news from correspondents alerting them that there could possibly be more protest in the future.
After getting the news, Meder and Berger both expressed their concern there is nothing on record that notifies the township during a protest that could close down a street or need extra police presence.
Mayor Jeffrey Beenstock agreed that this presents a legitimate concern as far as public safety goes, particularly if the picketing is near a popular street or if it is a large group that spans across the street and sidewalks. Traffic problems could arise in either of these scenarios.
Medford Town Council typically researches how other towns deal with certain topics before creating its own ordinance. However in this case, a lot of towns have avoided adopting these types of ordinances because of constitutionals issues.
“There is arguably a right to create a permit process. The problem is the courts are very protective of people’s first amendment rights,” township solicitor Christopher Norman said.
Norman dug up an ordinance from another town in New Jersey that was passed in 2005 that requires an organizer to obtain a permit seven days prior to the event from the police chief for any gathering of 20 or more people for the purpose of demonstrating picketing, speechmaking or marching.
A federal district court judge struck it down immediately.
Norman is working on finding the case to determine the reasoning for this but expressed his concern about creating a fair ordinance that would address a number of things, including how soon the group would have to obtain it.
“You want to give them the flexibility to obtain the permit before the event. However if you give too short of a time period, there are issues with that, and if you give too much, you have a completely different issue,” Norman said. “It’s all in the eyes of the beholder.”
Councilman Christopher Buoni described this matter as one he felt to be a legitimate expenditure of government funds and taxpayer revenue to facilitate such protests.
Buoni interprets this scenario as an exercising of our most basic rights so he doesn’t feel the need to force residents to pay the police coverage for it unless there are certain misbehaviors that would require fines.
“For people who are peacefully demonstrating and making their public case, I don’t think it’s too much to ask the taxpayers to pay for that because it’s their rights being protected,” he said.
Buoni also suggested the idea of making this a permit folks would be guaranteed to get so there is no concern of denying anyone’s freedom of speech. All the council would be asking for is notification for the safety of the public.
“I think we could reasonably make a case if we’re not asking for money, we’re not trying to restrict your ability to do it, we’re just looking for notification for your own safety and for everybody around you,” Buoni said.
“Our concern is just that we can properly prepare,” Meder said. “We’re not trying to stop them, we’re just trying to make sure it’s orderly and it’s safe.”
Beenstock plans to speak with Meder more in depth to discuss what exactly the police force would need to make this possible and then take that information into consideration while moving forward with this potential ordinance.
Councilmen Bradley Denn also added that the group plans to conduct research with other towns across the country to see how they handle this matter.
Denn, Buoni, Norman and Berger decided to form a subcommittee in order to specifically target this issue moving forward.
