Politicians wish to say they assist a free press. We’ll discover out Tuesday evening (April 28) if anyone on the Menlo Park Metropolis Council truly believes within the First Modification.
Council will vote on a listing of latest and elevated charges, and slipped into the 245-page doc is a requirement that newspapers pay $373 for every rack. For a paper with 25 racks, that might be a $9,325 hit.
Renewing a allow would value $233 per yr for every rack.
If a newspaper wished to dispute these charges, town would cost it $373.
Put one other method, Menlo Park needs to start out charging individuals to train their constitutional rights. How lengthy earlier than town slaps a tax on individuals who need to train their proper to free speech, or to peaceably assemble?
The council is trying to impose this information rack price, together with tons of of different new charges or will increase, as a result of the state has decreased how a lot automobile tax cash town will get.
If town wants to avoid wasting cash, it may get rid of its “public engagement supervisor,” Kendra Calvert, who made $156,923 in 2024, in keeping with the federal government wage monitoring web site Clear California. With advantages, her compensation was $250,325.
That’s some huge cash for a PR particular person.
Reducing her job would end in a financial savings a lot better than the income town would get from information rack charges.
However metropolis governments hardly ever have a look at saving cash — they give attention to elevating taxes and charges.
The town calls this a “price for service,” however the metropolis received’t be offering any service to newspapers. The newspapers buy and preserve the information racks. The newspaper is accessible to readers at no cost. But town needs to cost us for offering a free product. Are you able to tax one thing that’s free?
If authorised tonight, Menlo Park would change into the primary Mid-Peninsula metropolis to cost such a price.
Native newspapers are sometimes small companies. These charges are prohibitive. They’ll make a paper contemplate the concept of dropping distribution and information protection in Menlo Park. In any case, newspapers normally don’t should pay a price to train their First Modification rights. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
If council members actually assist a free press, they need to drop these charges.
Editor Dave Value’s column seems on Mondays.
