Northrup Trial Continued: Mayor a “No-Show”

The Cowboy and the Gadfly

A surfeit of Town employees, representing the Planning Department, Director William Morris (pictured), town Manager Ms. Abi Adame, Code Enforcer Manuel Pacheco, and two of the latter’s foot soldiers joined forces with Muni Judge Eugene “Big Geno” Sanchez to try the white-haired Jeff Northrup at the court on Thursday morning at 9 am. Northrup was accused of violating a town ordinance governing signs in public right-of-ways. A number of local citizens, including a native Taoseno, who is both a veteran of the U.S. Army and well known political battler, Councilor Clean Gene Sanchez gathered to observe the doings in Metro Taos. Mr. Northrup, aka the Gadfly, was a one-time candidate for Mayor of Taos.

In the interests of justice and investigation of, perhaps, a larger conspiracy, the Gadfly sent a subpoena to Mayor Darren Cordova. But Judge Sanchez announced that the Mayor’s attorney, Marcus Rael, had filed a motion the day before to quash said subpoena. The attorney argued that the witness, Mayor Cordova, had little to do with and knew even less about the particulars surrounding the bust.

Judge Sanchez continued the case until Oct. 18 at 11 am in order to give Mr. Northrup time to file a reply to the last minute Cordova—Rael motion.

The disappointed spectators filtered out of the decorous Spanish Colonial chambers into the streets under the gray skies. Shrugging his shoulders, the Gadfly quipped, “First the Mayor was running against me. Now he’s running away from me.” The omnipresent protester slipped a DVD in my pocket. It contained the record of an earlier confrontation with Director Morris. The Director wears a straw cowboy hat and speaks with a drawl and sounds slightly like he comes from South of the border with northern New Mexico.

The DVD, a hilarious color video recording, betrayed an uncertain Cassavetes-like hand-held camera technique but the audio control was sensitive and true. The Cowboy confessed that he’d been called in [on his day off] to settle the Gadfly’s sign chops. During the conversation with the Gadfly it became apparent that despite the Cowboy’s “20 something” years of experience, he couldn’t really tell the sign man where the town’s “right-of-way” began or ended because he hadn’t access to a survey. In an effort to clarify the code he gave it a “by guess” and “by golly” but the former trainer of trotters and PETA protector, the Gadlfy himself, wasn’t buying “guesstimates.”

Further, Mr. Northrup made it clear on the tape that he had requested information about the definition of “right-of-way” earlier and for weeks from the Cowboy but had been sadly ignored until the day on which the recording was made. During this friendly conversation—watch for it on You Tube—Jeff continued to subject his interlocutor to specific questions about the vague nature of the ordinance and its definitions but the Cowboy was what a judge might call “non-responsive.”

How wide or how many feet from, say, the centerline of Highway 68 does the Town’s right-of-way extend in an easterly or westerly direction seems crucial if you’re busting somebody for violating the public right-of-way who is exercising his  First Amendment rights.

The two-person dramedy took place in front of the green plastic barrier constructed to protect passers-by from the landscaping project being developed at the County Complex, opposite the Centinel Bank. Both subjects stood on the east side of the north-south highway, off the asphalt in slightly muddy depression, memorably marked by a forlorn paper cup. After about ten minutes Cowboy Morris gave it up. Gadfly Northrup said he wasn’t leaving. The Cowboy threatened to refer the matter to El Jefe (Chief of Police). Jeff said he was a non-violent man and wasn’t packing, certainly he respected armed cops, who carry nightsticks and tasers but [like Bartleby] he preferred not to leave or remove said signs, he said.

Though Director Morris said on tape he has been in “the business for 20 something years,” he may not be up-to-date on Taos County’s “quo warranto” lawsuit, questioning the town’s practice of annexing county property while not following state statutes and providing citizens with a paper trail for lo’ some forty years. Talk about “illegal takings.” The Cowboy and the Gadfly also discussed issues of DOT (New Mexico Department of Transportation) policy and jurisdiction.

The Cowboy reassured the Gadfly that it was certainly his privilege to protest with his [diminutive] signs on private property.

Given the habit of commercial establishments, which thrust sandwich boards (like Mr. Northrup’s) into the public viewscape, not to mention the permissive attitude of the town toward the vendors of our excellent local weekly each Thursday, the enforcement of vague right-of-way regs seemed “capricious and arbitrary,”

A vague ordinance compounded by vague definitions seems like the foundation for a fine civil rights lawsuit. (The Town paid out $12,000 to local attorneys for a first amendment violation a few years ago.) The jurisdictional problems—given the First Amendment and highway right-of-way issue suggests district court–not misdemeanor court–is the place where the Town should  have filed this complex case. The Mayor has a record of over-reacting and punishing this pest, this Gadfly—he and his witnesses were alleged to have perjured themselves–in a prior court case, charging Mr. Northrup with trespassing–which case is currently being appealed.

Below the Friction posts selections from the Town Code available on the Town’s own web site. We understand that the excerpt is neither exhaustive nor necessarily completely applicable as part of the law. But it is a start.

15.08.410: EXEMPT SIGNS

The following classes of signs are exempt from the requirements of the Sign Code except to the extent stated in this section or as determined by the Code Administrator based upon particular, specified public health, safety, welfare or aesthetic considerations.

b. A reasonable number of off‐site civic, church, service club, political, election
campaign or other noncommercial signs or emblems are exempt from the provisions of this Sign Code, provided they are not illuminated and each does not exceed six (6) square feet in over‐all dimension, nor exceed five (5) feet in height. Such signs may be double faced. In addition, up to one banner, not to exceed twenty‐four (24) square feet in size, will be permitted per property.

f. Regardless of any other provision of this Sign Code, non‐commercial signs shall not be restricted more severely than commercial signs or prohibited where commercial signs are permitted, and any particular type of non‐commercial sign shall not be restricted more severely than another type of non‐commercial sign, or prohibited where another type of non‐commercial sign is permitted.

Definition:

Right‐of‐way or Public Right‐of‐way: Any street, road, highway, trail, bicycle path, alley or sidewalk open to and used by the public within the municipal limits of the Town of Taos.

Postscript: Flavio says a public right-of-away is the proper place for political signs and protestors—at least in America. Generally speaking, you can’t exercise the right to protest or affect public consciousness if you are restricted to private property, where nobody is present. Public streets, like the public commons, belong to, well, the public—not to the Mayor and his jackboots.