After a decision of the council to maintain the facilities of the city “neutral”, the rookies, along with other unmarried messages, can no longer be placed in the City of Fullerton or in any other building in the city.
The Fullerton City Council, on April 1 in a vote of 4-1, approved a policy that prohibits that all non-governmental content will be distributed in the city’s buildings. The only exception to the new policy is a “news of the community” shelf in the back of the Fullerton libraries.
A letter to the city officials of a local blog “making a statement of intention” to show its newsletter in the City Council caused the policy question, said the city lawyer, Richard Jones.
“This led to a broader conversation with respect to political problems related to the use of our city facilities and whether or not you should be considered as non -public forums or a public forum source,” Jones said.
Because the board approach was in the broader issue of the appropriate use of the city’s facilities and not “reprisals or focused on nature in a given publication”, it would not be a violation of the first amendment, Jones told the members of the Council.
However, Councilor Ahmad Zahra, the only vote in deceleration, argued that the approved policy encompasses the rights of freedom of expression.
“We have two publications in our city that have been producing news and covering the city during the last decades. One of them is the Observer Fullerton, and the other is the daily titan,” Zahra said. “The final result is to expel those two.”
The Fullerton Observer, a community document led by volunteers, has been available in the City Council and other city buildings for more than 40 years.
“I think that freedom of expression is crucial. The free exchange of ideas, good and bad, allows a community to openly discuss all the sides of a problem and really knows what the community as a whole represents,” said Saskia Kennedy, owner of the Fullerton Observer. “Our democracy is stronger with more information and points of view available to the public.”
In a publication on social networks after the meeting of the City Council of April 1, Zahra said that the prohibition “will decrease the visibility” of the two local publications and “moisten the spirit” of community journalism.
“We are at a time when freedom of expression, and as a special freedom of the press, is so crucial,” said Zahra. “It may not be unconstitutional, but it certainly violates the ethical standards of what the Constitution transmits and represents.”
Emily Wilson, editor in chief of the Daily Titan, the student newspaper of Cal State Fullerton, said the policy “indicates that they want to control the message.”
“We want City country to give that what they do is essentially sending us the message that they do not support student journalism,” Wilson added. “I think that interpreting this as a prohibition of newspapers, which is what it is, is completely fair.”
Mayor Fred Jung defended politics and said he is destined to maintain the city’s buildings neutral.
“It was intended for non -profit brochures, postal ads, flyers to events that are not sponsored by the city,” said Jung. “It is meean for anything. The fact that the Daily Titan and the Fullerton Observer have tasks on the subject of the subject personally when it has nothing to do with them is really strange and, frankly reigns, counterproductive.”
The Daily Titan, said Wilson, will continue to cover the city of Fullerton.
“This prohibition will not significantly affect our ability to distribute, our ability to (remain) AFFloat, so to speak,” Wilson said. “But we take an important problem with the fact that the city is sending us a symbolic message that not only do not believe that our work is important, but they think that it is not not that it cannot not do it no.
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