Re: Public Nudity - Our Community

[ltrwritr@moscow.com (Mark Rounds)]

Mr. Guyer

There are ways to defuse this if you truly want to.  What I nor anyone else
wants to see in this town is a protest march with a bunch of shirtless
people.  This has already been proposed.  I also don't want to go through a
referendum process.  I will support this if I have to but there are also
ways around this if we work together and not draw lines in the sand.

I'll be blunt, I and others who think this is a grand waste of time didn't
attend the City Council Meeting because we thought that an ordinance could
be enacted to deal with the problem.  It seems to me that the problem was
not ever defined and we didn't demand that it be so we all pay for it.  I
should have come but I trusted you and the others on the Council.

So let's start the basic question.  Exactly what problem does this ordinance
try to remedy?  

If its because they young ladies who kicked this off were making a buck by
exposing themselves then the answer IMHO should have been a specific
ordinance against public sex oriented businesses.

If its because there was a traffic issue, we should have been looking at
ordinances to deal with attractive nuisances.  

Both of these are much easier to prosecute than what has been put up as law
here in Moscow.

What problem was this aimed at and help educate me to understand how it
solves it?  I promise to listen.

Now its true that other municipalities have laws on the books that are
similar but they come under fire each time they try to prosecute.  All it
will take will be a law student at the U of I with delusions of grandure and
we will spend great amounts of tax money defending an ordinance that win,
lose or draw that could have been more intelligently handled with another
ordinance.

Leaving it up to the policeman on the street is an abidication of your
responsibility in my view.  When I was younger, I mentored a young man
through some tough times at home.  I am now very proud to say that he is a
Highway Patrolman.  When we discussed this issue, it was his opinion that
Moscow enacted an ordinance that will probably never be enforced because any
cop worth his salt will figure out another way to address problems like
this.  The prosecution will be difficult to make stick and unless it is
handled ever so gently my the City and the prosecutor, it will turn into a
circus.

Now I am not going shirtless to prove this point nor is my wife or teenage
daughter.  I am hoping that with a little dialog and an application of some
common sense we can either define the problem this ordinance was trying to
solve and convince people that it really is a problem or amend or rescind
the ordinance.

I would suggest that perhaps you and a couple of the cooler heads on the
other side of the fence debate this publically or in a mutually agreeable
forum.  Yes, I know there was a comment period but it is obvious that a lot
of people that should have been ther also thought this would have been
handled in a reasonable manner.  Give them a chance to be heard and discuss
this with them openly.

This can can definitely devide folks in this town but only if we allow it.
I am asking you to reach out a bit and look at this again.  I would also ask
the folks who disagree with this to reach out a bit.   We can still solve
this rationally if we work together.

Mark Rounds


At 08:52 AM 7/18/02 -0700, John Guyer wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>Pam Palmer Wrote:
>"It does not refer to pubescent, except when referring to female breasts
>(see below).  So far, I have not seen any "cleft of the buttocks" and
>"genitals" exemptions for prepubescent people, so infants & toddlers
>seem to be fair game for committing misdemeanors according to the
>Council's new ordinance."
>---
>Pam is correct in one sense.  There are no specific exemptions for the
>prepubescent in exposing genitals.  This is not new.  This section of
>the code was not amended.  I do not have the history in front of me, but
>it has been on the books for a very long time (even while Pam herself
>was on the council).  Neither is it unprecedented to not specifically
>include the exemption.  The language here is lifted straight from the
>Idaho Code, which I understand would pre-empt our code, even if we did
>provide it (http://www3.state.id.us/cgi-bin/newidst?sctid=180410016.K).
>
>I would like to use this opportunity to draw your attention to that fact
>that we have NOT had local nor state police rounding up parents changing
>diapers, nor our young when they "violate" the ordinance or statute in
>this regard.  I, for one, do not expect that to change.  We do have
>common sense peace officers.
>
>I understand that there is a group of people upset by this amendment.  I
>regret that some find it troubling.  While I believe an ordinance is the
>right thing for our community I find that the current threads on V2020
>are not helping.  When several people testified that we, as a council,
>have more important things to deal with, I completely agreed. However, I
>also recognize that we have an obligation to spend the time to handle
>the issues that divide the community.  This one is dividing us.   
>
>Putting the community through the referendum process is not going to
>bring us together.  Rehashing this will continue to divide us.  Did you
>not believe your own testimony?  While I am not directly discouraging
>you from pursuing your rights, I would ask you to please consider, as
>did we as a council, what impact your actions will have.  Will the
>campaign on both sides of the issue bring us together?  Will the
>community ever be the same after the heated campaign?
>
>In either case, I would encourage each of you, whether you like this
>ordinance or not to do a little research on municipal and state codes.
>You may be surprised to find that while ours is unique (in that it
>allows for center cleavage), it is not unprecedented.  Indeed, it is
>very common.  One young lady (to remain nameless here) came to us and
>testified that she had taken her shirt off all over this country.
>Moscow was the first place where she found it legal.
>
>In summary, I would ask you to please consider a helpful phrase that I
>use regularly in my own life:  Just because you can, doesn't mean you
>should.
>
>John B. Guyer
>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>johnguy@moscow.com
>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
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