A Paradox - Defending Freedom And Stifling Dissent

SPARSE TURNOUT
On a humid, overcast morning fewer than 100 residents and city staffers met on the City Hall lawn this morning for a brief remembrance of the events that occurred on September 11, 2001.

SHORT AND SWEET
Public Affairs Manager Dan Joyce coordinated this remembrance, which included a brief speech by him, recognition of a flag that had flown at the World Trade Center site and a moment of silence.

CMFD PARTICIPATED
A fire truck and crew were on-hand, as was Deputy Fire Chief Fred Seguin, to help with this remembrance.  

CMPD, TOO
Police Chief Tom Gazsi and members of his command staff were also in attendance.

SOME POLITICIANS
City Council candidates Harold Weitzberg and John Stephens attended and signed the banner that will be shipped to New York City.  The only current elected official I saw at the event was Jim Righeimer.



STAFF AND COMMUNITY TOGETHER
The members of the city staff and from the community paid their respects.

AN IRONY
It was a great irony that, as this group gathered to recognize the threat to our freedoms that occurred eleven years ago, some city employees are having some of their freedoms abridged.

 POLITICAL ACTIVITY PROHIBITIONS
In a two-page memo to employees, City CEO Tom Hatch, shown here contemplating the 91101 event, provided them with "Guidelines for City Employee Involvement in Political Campaigns", a list of five things employees may do and eleven things they should not do regarding political activities.

SPEAKING OUT...
Among the things that are prohibited is this statement, "Don't make public statements or press appearances in favor of or against a candidate or ballot measure during normal work hours, during official city meetings or break times."  That emphasis is mine.  The way I interpret this prohibition, City employees will be forbidden to speak out at City Council meetings on, for example, Jim Righeimer's Charter.  I suspect this is a violation of their protections under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

PENALTIES?
I also wonder what the penalties are for NOT signing the forms and for violation of the "guidelines"?  Nothing in the memo indicates the penalty for transgression.
 
WHAT ABOUT THE CITY COUNCIL?
I also wonder how this applies to City Council members who are, after all, employees of the city, receiving a salary and benefits for the performance of their jobs?  Who will enforce these "guidelines" with members of the City Council?

STIFLING DISSENT
In my opinion, this is just one more example of the current government of this city attempting to stifle dissent.  The City Council majority does it on a regular basis by chiding speakers before them and disparaging their views.  Now they are trying to silence opposing views from within the city operations, too.  This is just one more example of why Jim Righeimer's Charter is a terrible idea.  It will provide the structure for the installation of a dictatorship - the signs are clear as crystal.

Setting The Record Straight, Almost

I JUMPED ON IT!
My previous post, which I exuberantly titled, "Marijuana Advocacy Program Forced Off Local Radio", quoted, verbatim, a "press release" apparently from officials at local radio station KOCI-FM 101.5 outlining the reasons for abruptly terminating one of their regularly-scheduled programs, "Cannabis Community".

FREEDOM OF SPEECH, NOT POT
I wrote that post not because I'm sympathetic to the operators of so-called medical marijuana dispensaries, but because the circumstances as described in the press release reeked of government - federal and local - interference in this matter. To me, this was a freedom of speech issue, pure and simple. Well, it turns out that it was neither pure nor simple.

CLOSING THE LOOP
I spent much of the day trying to contact the parties involved in this fiasco. I spoke with the manager of the station, Brent Kahlen, their General Counsel, Barry Jorgensen, Cannabis Community host Robert Martinez, community activist, former city council candidate and former medical marijuana dispensary owner Sue Lester and Costa Mesa Director of Communications, Bill Lobdell. I also exchanged many emails with the person, who will remain anonymous for the time being, who authored the press release. Eventually, this evening, I had finally made enough contacts, asked enough questions and received enough answers to feel comfortable about trying to close the loop. While viewpoints differ as to what, precisely, was said at the radio station studios Sunday morning, here are the "facts" as I now know them.

THOUGHT MARTINEZ COULDN'T AFFORD THE AIR TIME
Sometime last week Kahlen had a conversation with Martinez in which concern was made about Martinez' ability to come up with the fee the station charges to put the show on the air. This was because Martinez had shut down his medical marijuana dispensary following receipt of a cease and desist letter from the U.S Attorney's office. Kahlen was under the impression that Martinez wouldn't be able to come up with the cash, so removed the program from the roster.

DIFFERENT VIEWS OF EVENTS
Sunday morning Martinez showed up with Sue Lester, who was to be a guest on the show, and another unidentified guest, ready to broadcast. He brought with him a check and presented it to Barry Jorgensen, who at first accepted it. At that point another employee of the station expressed surprise that the show would go on, so a discussion took place during which Jorgensen at one point attempted to negotiate a lesser time slot. Views of the conversation differ, but Martinez, Lester and another KOCI employee heard the version portrayed in the press release - which implied FBI, chamber of commerce and city council involvement. Jorgensen denies ever mentioning those entities, but did admit that station management had concerns about the program because of all the controversy swirling around the dispensaries in Costa Mesa and other local cities. With their license up for renewal, they didn't want any controversy. Kahlen was called and, on a speaker phone for all to hear, told Jorgensen to cancel the program. That happened just minutes before the scheduled air time. Jorgensen returned Martinez' check to him and Martinez and his party left the station.

NO GOVERNMENT CONTACT
When I spoke with Jorgensen this evening I asked him twice, point blank, if there had been ANY contact by the FBI, chamber of commerce or representatives of Costa Mesa government on this subject. He flatly denied ANY such contact. Their decision was purely a business decision - to avoid placing their continued operation in jeopardy.

BUSINESS DECISION
During my conversation earlier to day with Brent Kahlen he also denied any governmental involvement, emphasizing confusion about whether Martinez would come up with the money and the business decision to take him off the air.

BOGUS PRESS RELEASE
As to the "press release" that launched this controversy, here's what happened...
Following the event described above at which a surprised Martinez had his show canceled, he was departing with Lester and others when that unnamed employee mentioned above, feeling sympathy for his plight, offered to construct a template of a press release for him to issue - assuming it would be issued under Martinez' name. He did so, and emailed it to Martinez.

TWO HUGE MISTAKES
Martinez looked it over and forwarded the email on to Sue Lester, who tidied it up by correcting a mistake and deleting superfluous information. She then extracted Martinez' email address, to protect it from the public. She then posted it exactly as it appeared in my blog entry, including the KOCI "From" line, which made it appear to have been issued by the radio station. (For some reason, when I copied and pasted the Facebook post the actual email "from" address was dropped, leaving only "KOCI"). The employee who wrote it is not authorized to issue press releases. He wrote the document as a "draft" to help a friend compose his own. He didn't expect it to be used verbatim. So, we have TWO BIG MISTAKES. The first was the original composition of the "draft" press release. The second was Sue Lester's deletion of the Martinez address line, which resulted in the confusion about who issued it.

SNOOKERED BY AN UNINTENDED MANIPULATION
Lester then posted the "press release" several places, including on my Facebook page. That's where I saw it and reacted by posting my blog entry. I trusted the identity of the author of the press release because I recognized the sending address. I didn't think it had been manipulated - but it had.

ANGRY LOBDELL DENIES ANY CITY INVOLVEMENT
This morning, while I was out, I received an angry message on my answer machine from Bill Lobdell. He, correctly so, was fuming about the implications of my blog entry. He vehemently denied, in the message and during our subsequent conversation, that ANY person from the City had made contact with KOCI to influence them regarding the radio program. Based on his protestations and my subsequent conversations today, I must only conclude that he is correct.

TWO VERSIONS OF SAME CONVERSATION
Although my investigation resulted in two different versions of the conversation at the station Sunday morning - it amounts to a "they said/they said" kind of situation - with all things considered, it doesn't seem likely that there has been any governmental attempt to influence KOCI - at least not overtly. I'm not accusing either side of lying. I think that, in the heat of the moment, each "heard" a different version of the event. Certainly, the management of the station has a very heightened sensitivity to their position in the community, their pending license renewal and the controversy around marijuana in general these days. They made the business decision they felt was best for their station.

WHY DID I BELIEVE IT?
For me, though, there's a bigger question at play here. As I waded through the morass of this situation today I kept asking myself why I was so ready to believe the conspiracy element of this event. Here's what I've come up with... First, because the laws governing marijuana use differ widely from the federal to the state, local jurisdictions are between that literal "rock and hard place". As a result, it is my understanding that the only way federal authorities will act in a local jurisdiction is if they are invited in by local authorities. It is also my understanding that this has happened in the case of Costa Mesa recently, where most - if not all - so-called medical marijuana dispensaries have been forced out of business by the feds.

AND...
Because of that attitude, and because our current City Council has demonstrated a willingness to play fast and loose with the rules on many other issues, it was - unfortunately - easy for me to contemplate municipal interference in this issue. I've been told there was none, so I will accept that unless facts later prove otherwise. However, I've grown to distrust this council because they've demonstrated, time after time, their untrustworthiness. Sorry, but that's the way it is...

THAT'S MY VIEW, BUT...
You can read Sean Greene's account of the story from the Orange County Register HERE and Joe Serna's report from the Daily Pilot HERE. I'm not the only citizen/journalist to pursue this issue. I've given you my summary and conclusion, but others may arrive at a different outcome. I guess we'll see...