by Jamilla El-Shafei
Kennebunkport voters have approved a new Mass Gathering Ordinance which would make obtaining a permit for protests more difficult, more costly, and, according to the Maine Civil Liberties Union, an unconstitutional infringement of civil liberties.

Kennebunkport, Maine was the ‘Mecca’ for dissent this past summer. President Bush spent more time than usual at his family’s summer home entertaining heads of state from Russia’s President Putin to France’s President Sarkozy as well as recreating with his war profiteer cronies who “summer” there.

President Bush’s visits attracted massive anti-war and impeachment demonstrations, which in turn attracted the national and international media. Town officials received complaints from the business community, some wealthy retirees who “did not retire to the town to have to see protests in the streets,” and, perhaps even the Bush family complained that they did not appreciate media attention focusing on dissent in Kennebunkport. Whatever the reason, the town wanted to put a lid on the protests which were growing in size. The August protest was the largest demonstration in the history of Maine.

The Kennebunkport town ”deciders” created some new rules which would affect events expected to draw more than 500 people. They also changed the application process, making the permits more difficult to get.

Formerly, permits were granted by the Chief of Police Joe Bruni, with whom I had an excellent working relationship. Whenever I applied for a permit it was granted in an expeditious manner. He had confidence that my organization would fulfill our end of the agreement. We always “left the grounds and streets cleaner than we found them,” according to Bruni. My organization always took out expensive event insurance to protect the town.

The permitting process worked well, so there was no need to change it, except that it worked too well! The town “deciders” usurped Chief Bruni’s authority to grant permits and gave it to the more politicized Board of Selectmen. The Board of Selectmen can exempt weddings, funerals, and family gatherings.

They have broad discretion to exempt any event they feel warrants exclusion. The selectmen are now requesting expensive surety bonds for events. The town has told the media that the change was prompted by a traveling circus which visited Kennebunkport and was held on private property. However, this reasoning does not hold water as the performance company Cirkus Smirkus has a huge liability policy that would protect the town in the event of a claim.

The conservative Portland Press Herald‘s editorial board came out in support of my claim that the new ordinance seems to be directed at protesters. They editorialized that, “Town officials say they don’t intend to limit political speech. If that is the case this should be easy to fix.” Also, The Maine Civil Liberties Union and I let the town officials know that if they attempted to implement the ordinance, we would sue.

In less than 48 hours, before the ink was even dry on the new ordinance, it was tabled pending the legal outcome of a similar case in Augusta. That case won in the Maine Supreme Court and the First District Court in Boston and is being appealed.

It turns out that the “deciders” failed to get the town’s attorney to review the new ordinance before it went on the ballot. Not surprisingly, when the attorney, Amy Tchao, did review the new legislation she said that if she had done a comprehensive review, she would have raised concerns about the Board of Selectmen’s broad ability to grant exemptions. “I don’t think the intent was to open up what the Board of Selectmen, at their whim, could decide to exempt based on content of speech but that is what it did.”

The “deciders” are rightly embarrassed by their pathetic and thinly-veiled attack on our freedom to assemble, which has been exposed for what it is and will now fail.

We are facing an onslaught of these types of attacks all across America. They are eroding our civil rights. It is imperative that an engaged citizenry remain vigilant to protect our right to dissent.