Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and his legal staff were surely not surprised when his announced rules for those intent on protesting at this summer's Republican National Convention were met with strong opposition from activists in the Bay area.
But that opposition stretched out way beyond a handful of activists. The more establishment editorial board of the the Tampa Bay Times also criticized the ordinance, giving cover for some City Council members perhaps uncertain how strongly to oppose the mayor.
In the aftermath of the Council's public opposition on April 5, negotiations between the City of Tampa's legal staff and members of the City Council have been so extensive that the revised ordinance will now come before the Council on May 3, some four weeks after several council members said they could not support what the Buckhorn administration was calling its rules inside the "clean zone."
Those issues included even the name of the "clean zone," which some critics said was a way of marginalizing those who intend on publicly dissenting. It's now called the "event zone."
Those items and more have now been addressed in a proposed new ordinance from the city's legal department issued to City Council members on Monday.
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2012.