Hello everyone,
Great news,
We were in Federal Court today for a hearing regarding the street sweepers. In short, the ruling ten years ago, establishing the one mile rule, had wording regarding the street sweepers being behind the first parade. The City of Boston in February agreed to have the street sweepers behind our parade. Last Friday they reneged on that deal and told our lawyers that the street sweepers will be behind the first parade. Our lawyers told us that the Allied War Veterans Council had threatened to sue the city if the street sweepers were not behind their parade hanging their hat on that wording which they interpreted as requiring the city to have the street sweepers behind the first parade.
We went into court today to challenge that provision and argued to have that part of the first ruling referencing the street sweepers stricken from the ruling. WE WON!!!
Thank you to our lawyers at the ACLU and LeClair/Ryan.
The judge is taking the second part of the argument under advisement. That is our claim that by having the street sweepers behind the first parade, or even between the two parades, it infringes on our first amendment rights. Our argument was that the City of Boston was choosing sides and giving preferential treatment to one veterans parade over another. That having the street sweepers behind the first parade tells everyone that the activities for the day are over, when in fact another parade is still marching. I think the judge is trying to have the city decide to do the right thing and not have to rule on a first amendment issue. Our lawyers will be speaking to the city lawyers tomorrow and hopefully they will make the right decision.
Stay tuned.
Pat Scanolon
VFP Member of Chapter 9 - Smedley Butler Brigade
PS - Please keep passing the word, we only have three more day to turn out our friends and allies - send some emails, make some calls - this is the most important 72 hours of our organizing effort. Our strength is in our numbers, lets turn our our supporters