Re: City Council

[Pam Palmer <ppalmer@moscow.com>]

Visionaries-

It is my understanding, and perhaps Councilman Guyer can confirm this, that
the Moscow City Council will discuss several proposed nudity ordinances on
July 1st, at their next Monday night council meeting.  Peg Hamlett, the only
councilmember likely to speak against such an ordinance, will not be in town
for the July 1st meeting (the Council had advance notification of her
attendance at an annual conference).  In addition, both Mayor Marshall
Comstock and City Supervisor Gary Riedner are out of town this week (at the
Association of Idaho Cities conference), which makes it difficult for
citizens to have conversations with either of them about this issue.

I understand that three versions of an ordinance are being prepared for the
City Council to consider.  I do not know the specific language in each
version, but a rough summary follows:

#1 It would be unlawful for women to expose their nipples and areolas,
except for breastfeeding mothers.

#2 The same as the first version, except that it would also be unlawful to
show the contours of the nipples and areolas.  (This means the "pasties"
used to cover the areolas would have to be made out of a stiffer material.)

#3 It would be unlawful for women to expose their nipples, areolas or the
"southern hemisphere" of the breast, again except for breastfeeding mothers.

As a former City Council member who spent way too much time discussing such
an ordinance the first time around, I implore City Council not to jump into
a knee-jerk ordinance, but rather to step back and consider the longer term
picture of Moscow life.

We've already dealt with the nudity ordinance.  It hasn't presented a
problem until the convertible carwash opened up.  If the current issue is
that a business is profiting from sexual exploitation of female bodies, why
not look at model ordinances around the country that focus on "Sexually
Oriented Businesses" (otherwise known as SOB ordinances).  It seems that
this is an area that would make more sense for the future of Moscow.

Pam Palmer