City Council has withdrawn a proposed ordinance that would have barred political activity on all city-owned property after council members raised concerns about free speech, enforcement and process.<\/p>\n
Council President Donna Reed, the sponsor of the bill, said at the committee of the whole meeting Tuesday that she was pulling the measure from next week\u2019s agenda because it needed additional work and clarification.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still want to move something forward,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I understand folks\u2019 concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reed emphasized repeatedly that the intent was not to restrict First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not to prohibit any kind of freedom of speech,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n
Instead, she framed the issue as a question of whether the interiors of municipal buildings should be available for political use, even if public streets, parks and exteriors remain open forums.<\/p>\n
Reed argued that if city facilities are available for political events, they must be equally available to any group, including those with extremist or hateful ideologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to open it to everyone, whether they\u2019re extremists, whether they\u2019re middle of the road,\u201d she said. \u201cDo we want any of our city buildings marred by people who do not respect the human dignity of all?\u201d<\/p>\n
She acknowledged such scenarios might be unlikely, but said students of history can understand what has happened in the past.<\/p>\n
The proposal prompted questions from other council members about how the city could determine which groups might be considered extreme and whether the ordinance would create legal and practical problems.<\/p>\n
Reed noted the difficulty of enforcement, asking rhetorically: \u201cWho are we to determine if someone\u2019s going to use it for that purpose?\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilman Jaime Baez Jr. pushed back strongly, saying council members had not been consulted before the ordinance was introduced.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to hear you say working with everyone, but it\u2019s apparent that before this ordinance was presented I didn\u2019t receive a phone call or an email or discussion about this,\u201d Baez said.<\/p>\n
Baez also questioned whether a blanket prohibition was necessary, noting that laws already exist to address safety concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s not broken, why are we trying to fix it?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
City Solicitor Fred Lachat said the ordinance would require significant discussion because restrictions on political expression must be handled carefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going to get into banning political expression, or allowing any political expression, you have to be content neutral, which then opens the door to everybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Reed said she hopes to work with the administration and solicitors to draft a revised version that council could support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll work on a new ordinance and try to get one where everyone can feel comfortable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Other business<\/p>\n
Council reviewed several proposals tied to public safety and budget adjustments.<\/p>\n
Among them was a proposed bill updating Reading\u2019s fire prevention code to match the state\u2019s adoption of the 2021 International Fire Code.<\/p>\n
Fire Marshal Jeremy Searfoss said the city\u2019s dense urban environment requires stricter local amendments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have specific amendments that increase the safety over some other municipalities,\u201d Searfoss said.<\/p>\n
Council also reviewed a budget amendment recognizing stronger-than-expected EMS billing collections.<\/p>\n
Officials said there have been changes in the billing services and practices.<\/p>\n
Council members also praised public works crews for working overtime to remove snow after the recent storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council has withdrawn a proposed ordinance that would have barred political activity on all city-owned property after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,857,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":{"0":"post-118052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-essential-reading","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-reading","14":"tag-reading-city","15":"tag-reading-city-headlines","16":"tag-reading-city-news","17":"tag-top-stories-reg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}