County ousts Tax Revolt volunteers

By Suzanne Adams
Miner Staff Writer
Published: October 30,2007

A couple of Arizona Tax Revolt volunteers got a very unappreciated surprise Monday when Bullhead City police officers asked them to leave and told them they were not allowed to run a petition campaign on county property.

Arizona Tax Revolt Chairman Marc Goldstone said the volunteers had set up a table at the far end of the parking lot for the Mohave County Annex in Bullhead City, on city property. One volunteer was standing near the door to the building asking people if they knew of the tax reform petition and if they would sign it. The volunteer at the door would then point to the table at the other end of the parking lot. The group also planned to have volunteers at the county buildings in Kingman and Lake Havasu cities.

The Bullhead City Police Department received a call around 10 a.m. about a man soliciting signatures for a petition within the front entrance of the county Treasurer's Office on Hancock Road.

Officers advised the man that he could not solicit signatures in that area because he was technically trespassing, and they directed him back to the table that was set up near the street. According to BPD, the man complied with the officers' orders and was not cited.

"I'm completely livid," Goldstone said, calling the orders a violation of their First Amendment rights - "to speak with people on county property, which is all that our volunteers were instructed to do.

"To tell those people that they are not able to stand on county property and talk with people that are walking past, I find that an affront. That is unacceptable."

He said people were a little livid when they found out that Arizona Tax Revolt was not able to hold a petition drive on county property.

County Public Information Officer Darryle Purcell said it has been a general policy of the county not to allow groups to run petition campaigns on county property. It disrupts the flow of county business, he said, and people don't want to be accosted by groups asking them to sign petitions when all they want to do is pay their tax bill.

He quoted a letter sent to Goldstone from County Attorney Bill Ekstrom, on Oct. 25, which states, "with regard to the County Administration Complex, since the opening of the facility, it has been the policy of the county that the complex is available to the public for the conduct of county-related business and not as a public forum. The decision to allow county facilities to serve as a public forum is a managerial decision based on recognition of the rights of the county citizens to engage in county business without the imposition of pamphleteers, politicians or petition circulators."

The letter also states, "Moreover, circulation of petitions on county property normally reserved for the conduct of county business may suggest that the county or its employees support a particular initiative item, contrary to the public policy and laws of the state."

Purcell then quoted Arizona Revised Statute §11-410, which states, "A county shall not use its personnel, equipment, materials, buildings or other resources for the purpose of influencing the outcomes of elections."

"We are in the business of reality and we want to make sure there is no implied manipulation going on, and by allowing someone on you could imply that you are supporting them. Our own elected officials do not circulate petitions on county property," Purcell said.

Purcell said that county property that is leased to another entity, such as the County Fair Grounds in Kingman and the Mohave County Airport in Bullhead also falls under these guidelines.

He pointed back to Ekstrom's letter, which says, "there is no obligation, nor expectation, that the lessees would allow or disallow political activity on their premises and that should be a decision made by the individual lessees - not by the county."

People and groups are more than welcome to take a soapbox to the nearest public park and say their piece, Purcell said.

"The county is way out of line on this," Goldstone said.

Citing ARS §11-410, the same statute Purcell quoted, Goldstone said it only applied to county employees. The volunteers were not county employees, he said.

The statue also states, "Nothing contained in this section shall be construed as denying the civil and political liberties of any employee as guaranteed by the Untied States and Arizona Constitution."

Goldstone also referred to Article II Section 5 of the Arizona Constitution, which states, "The right of petition, and of the people to assemble for the common good, shall never be abridged."

"Personally I think the county manager needs to be fired over this one little issue, and any supervisors that support his position need to resign," Goldstone said.

A request to obtain a written policy stating that petition drives are not allowed on county property was refused, Goldstone said.

Purcell said he was not sure that a "written" policy existed.

"This is an outrage. Where do they think we're living in? Moscow? Even Moscow these days, I think, has more rights than we do in Mohave County," Goldstone said.

He has already contacted his attorneys about the situation and they are working on it, he said.

"Given the time-critical nature of this, civil disobedience against an unwritten policy seems to be in order," he said. "They don't get to arbitrarily decide this."

Additional comment - Thanks to the intervention of the Tax Revolt’s Phoenix law firm Attorney’s at Perkins Coie Brown and Bain the County convinced the County Atty. to back off and allow our “greeters” on county property and signature gathering on the sidewalk. It’s a small win, but significant. The county can not enact laws or policies to interfere with the initiative process.