I just heard from Steve Pierce that the city of Ypsilanti has done a turnabout and bounced the Stop City Income Tax group from the Heritage Festival Parade. The group which is campaigning to defeat the proposal for city income tax that is due to be on the ballot this November had previously applied and been approved to march in the parade. They filled out the paperwork indicating clearly the groups name and no one saw it as a problem initially. But apparently someone down at City Hall was reviewing the list of participants and decided that dissenters weren’t welcome at the parade.
It sounds like someone in charge has a thin skin when it comes to criticism of their policies and if that’s the case they have no business being in politics. Whoever made the decision reverse the approval should step forward and explain themselves. This move is outrageous and the person/people behind it should be removed from office. If indeed it was the mayor it shouldn’t be a surprise given the dirty politics they play during last year’s campaign. Perhaps a recall should be on the ballot right next to the tax proposal.
Sam,
The Ypsilanti Heritage Festival is a private volunteer organization that puts on the event including the parade. I know from past experience (including being a chairman of the Ypsilanti Heritage Festival in 1992/93) that the parade has traditionally sought to prohibit campaign messages. While the festival must obtain a special event from the City, the organizers are in charge of the event including the parade. I have no knowledge of how the application by StopCityIncomeTax was initially handled or how it was recently followed up.
However, to characterize the responsible party as the City (and specifically the Mayor) is unfair since the festival organizers set the rules for their own event.
I suspect the Heritage Festival’s policy committee (members?) are the culprits. Rather than keep the big tent open they chose to simply limit free speech. This is about freedom of expression. Should be an interesting parade…
Since the group was advocating a specific way to vote it shouldn’t have been allowed in the parade. Washtenaw County Democrats or Eastern Michigan College Republicans would have been ok. “VOTE NO” NOT OK. If the pro tax would have applied for the parade they would have been told no. It was an honest mistake the parade orginizers made by intially letting them march but the CORRECT decision was made by officially denying the right to march. But the disregarded the rules anyway and got in with another group. Classy people.
Know what else is classy? City officials who try to scare constituents into voting for a tax to bail them out while denying the true cause of the problem — Water Street.
The festival organizers acted illegally by denying SCIT a spot in the parade. Nonam unfortunately doesn’t know thing one about the city’s ordinances protecting political and civil rights, just like festival organizers didn’t know thing one about them either. If asserting one’s constitutional rights reflects poorly on SCIT, then God help us all.