Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/109601
Sarasota News Leader February 15, 2013 Page 19 noticed meeting. A second suit involved a committee on public art that met outside a noticed meeting. Citizens for Sunshine was established in 2008. CITY DUCKS APPEAL For a short moment in time on Feb. 13, City Attorney Fournier could breathe. He had negotiated a resolution to a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union over the arrest by a city police officer on Jan. 17 of a man on public right of way. The man was holding up a sign saying, ���Stranded and hungry.��� Ironically, Jon Hill���s arrest was for violating a city ordinance in the process of being repealed, because Fournier realized the 1960s-era law was unconstitutional, could not be defended in court and was well into the repeal process. The police chief circulated an email telling officers not to enforce the ordinance. The arresting officer did not get the word, though, and Hill spent five days in the county jail. Sarasota City Manager Tom Barwin addresses issues regarding the city���s homeless during a joint meeting of the City and County commissions on Feb. 5. Photo by Norman Schimmel is unconstitutional and will be repealed. Yet, he does not want the city to remain under a permanent injunction, because that greatly complicates writing and passing a new and presumably constitutional ordinance regard12th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Rick DeFu- ing public safety.��� ria noted that streets and sidewalks ���have immemorially been held in trust for the use of Fournier worked to get an agreement with the ACLU to abide by a 60-day injunction stopthe public.��� ping police officers from ���interfering with the When Hill was hassled a second time by city exercise of First Amendment rights.��� But the police for the same behavior after his release injunction would not be permanent, allowing from jail, DeFuria was informed of the situa- the city to develop a new constitutional ordition. The judge hit the city with an injunction. nance. Fournier said the second incident ���tipped the The stipulation became official Feb. 13, the scales for the judge ���.��� same morning Citizens for Sunshine and As we reported in our Feb. 8 issue, ���Fourni- Fournier went before Judge Haworth regarder is in a jam only the law could create. He ing the ad hoc homeless issues committee���s is forced to defend an ordinance he knows Sunshine problems. %