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HUNTINGTON WOODS — At its Feb. 18 meeting, the Huntington Woods City Commission decided to table a decision regarding the establishment of a moratorium on room rentals and reservations at city facilities.
The moratorium, which would have been for 90 days, would have been for room rentals and the reservation policy at both the Recreation Center and the Huntington Woods Public Library while the city reviews its policies for potential changes.
While it’s been a discussion within the city for more than a month, a recent rejection of a room rental at the Recreation Center brought a number of residents to the meeting to discuss the topic.
The room rental was to hold a discussion on the conflict in Gaza by the Huntington Woods Peace Group. Member Linda Ashley said the group, which she stated has never had any disruptions at any of its meetings, was told it couldn’t have the reservation because of the content of the meeting.
“The content of the meeting is to discuss the current political climate, which we consider repressive, and what we can do to combat it,” she said. “We were told that the meeting is apt to attract too many people as well as demonstrations against it. We have never had too many people at our meetings, I’m sorry to say, and we have never had disruptions at our meetings.”
“The American Library Association says a public library that opens its facilities for public use may not exclude a group from its facilities to avoid controversy or public disapproval,” she continued. “To our families and neighbors, we say peace and justice are not abstract concepts to read about in the newspaper, but tangible goals we can and must pursue in our daily lives without fear of intimidation or censorship. We have always assumed that the city of Huntington Woods is the type of community that also expresses those beliefs.”
The city has stated that the issue with the meeting was that it was open to the public with no attendance limit, which concerned officials.
“We have a right to know roughly how many people you’re talking about having, because there’s a limit to what that room can accommodate,” Commissioner Jules Olsman told the Woodward Talk. “It’s a public library, so you’ve got people in there using the library, and what happens if all of a sudden a couple hundred people show up that aren’t going to fit in the room? This just goes to the city’s ability to provide a safe environment for our residents and the other people using the library and the rights of the people that want to have a meeting, pull a permit and have a meeting.”
Olsman said he initially wanted the moratorium to look at Huntington Woods’ ordinance, ordinances in other cities, and to see to what extent it needed to be changed and what information needed to be provided, such as how many people would be in attendance at a meeting or its length.
Olsman decided against the moratorium, agreeing to table it with the rest of the commission until the next meeting, which is scheduled to take place at 7:30 p.m. March 18 at City Hall, 26815 Scotia Road.
“I might have thought that that was a good idea, but in listening to the debate, I don’t think we need a moratorium,” he said. “We just need to consider whether or not our ordinance is good enough as it is or whether it needs to be tweaked in some way to make it more specific as to the person that pulls the permit and so people know exactly what they can do and what they can’t do with public space.”
“What we’re really trying to do is carefully balance everybody’s rights with the idea that the First Amendment comes first and that we still have an obligation to balance public safety and things like that,” he continued. “But what’s important is we’re not talking about subject matter or content. We’re just talking about the process of getting the permit.”
