News kiosks won’t be replacing boxes on downtown streets any time soon.
A City Hall proposal to group news boxes together in new kiosks ran into a barrage of criticism from media representatives and elected officials Monday night at the Board of Aldermen’s Legislation Committee, which tabled the proposal.
The ordinance would limit the number and placement of newspaper boxes in New Haven and also includes plans to create new “kiosks” that would consolidate multiple newspaper boxes into larger racks. (See previous Independent coverage here and here.)
Committee hairman Roland Lemar asked that the ordinance’s planners, Mike Piscitelli (transit chief, at left in picture) and Jennifer Pugh (deputy chief administrative officer, at right), hear from the committee and concerned parties. They got an earful.
Hill Alderman Jorge Perez (pictured, left) was among the most vocal opponents to the ordinance as it is currently worded. He complained that the proposal does not have clear enough criteria for acceptable newsracks and grants inordinate power to the director of the Department of Public Works. Perez said that granting the director of the DPW “sole and absolute discretion” when it comes to the creation and placement of kiosks would leave the city open to charges of infringement of First Amendment rights.
Piscitelli replied that the he didn’t see it as a problem. “It’s written that way,” he said, “but it’s hard for us to see the DPW acting in such a way that would rise to the level of a violation of constitutional rights.”
“I respectfully disagree,” replied Perez. “Stuff happens.” Perez warned that a lack of clear standards and criteria was an invitation for lawsuits. “You want to make it easy for the lawyers to sue you? Go ahead.”
Perez wasn’t the only one worried about the First Amendment. Josh Mamis (pictured, right), publisher of the New Haven Advocate (which operates about 120 newsracks in New Haven), told the committee that the proposal’s prioritization of daily papers over weeklies amounts to an restriction of freedom of speech. The ordinance states that priority shall be given to newspapers published five or more days per week when determining which newsracks will remain. Mamis’ lawyer, Paul Guggina (pictured, left), argued that this language could represent an unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of content.
Mamis was also concerned about the DPW’s power to revoke a newspaper box permit at any time and what that meant for newspapers’ coverage of city government. “Do you have to worry what you write about?” he wondered before the meeting.
Furthermore, Mamis complained about the lack of communication from the city prior to the drafting of the ordinance, saying that he hadn’t even been aware that there was a problem with newsracks in the city. “I’ve never fielded a complaint,” he told the committee, “If there are problems I’d love to hear about them.”
Mamis said that most concerns about newsracks could be addressed by a simple requirement mandating the registration of all newspaper boxes with the city.
After the meeting, Piscitelli explained to Mamis that there had been an April 2 media briefing on the newsrack ordinance and that the Advocate had not been purposely excluded from the process. The April 2 briefing was City Hall’s regular monthly press briefing held to alert the press to upcoming issues. Mamis said that he had never been invited. (The Advocate is invited to the monthly City Hall press briefings, and regularly sends a reporter.)
Piscitelli told the committee that the ordinance would be revisited after more input from local media is obtained.