ACTIVIST PRESSES FOR WIDER PROTEST

Ben Masel wants the Madison City Council to overturn a decision by
one of its panels to confine his proposed protest during the upcoming
U.S. Conference of Mayors to one block of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Kelli Lamberty, who staffs the committee that voted on Masel's street
use permit application, told Masel in a letter that he first needed
to appeal the decision to the city's Administrative Review Board. She
also told him that the City Council did not review decisions of the
Street Use Staff Team. But Ald. Brenda Konkel, upon Masel's request,
asked the City Clerk's Office to put the matter on Tuesday's City
Council agenda.

Tammy Peters of the City Clerk's Office said on Wednesday that she
was instructed by the Mayor's Office to refer the item to the
Administrative Review Board.

That means the council would take no action on the appeal Tuesday
night, Peters said. She said she has asked the City Attorney's Office
to clarify procedures for an appeal of Street Use Staff Team
decisions.Masel, a national activist for the legalization of
marijuana and a longtime organizer of the annual Madison area
Weedstock festival, said city ordinances do not require him to appeal
the decision administratively. He said the Review Board currently has
no appointed members and it would take the panel more than six weeks
to make an administrative ruling.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is scheduled to meet in June 14-18 at
the Monona Terrace Convention Center.

Mayoral aide Ryan Mulcahy said that Mayor Sue Bauman could quickly
appoint members to the Review Board and that the City Council could
approve these appointments on Tuesday. Mulcahy said he thought the
board would act "expeditiously" on Masel's appeal and didn't know why
Masel thought the appeals process would last more than six weeks.

"I don't know what gives him that idea," he said.

Masel applied about a year ago for a street use permit to hold a
two-day rally on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. during the mayors'
conferEnce.Since then, other groups, including the Creative People's
Resistance and Cities for People!, have said they also plan to
demonstrate.In April, the staff team, citing security concerns, said
Masel could use the 100 block but not the 200 block, which is closer
to Monona Terrace.

Masel said that decision infringes on the First Amendment rights of activists.

And he said in a formal appeal to the City Council that it would be
good public policy for city lawmakers to overturn the staff team's
ruling.

"Madison has enjoyed 30 years free of significant political violence,
not because we've been lucky' but because a practical respect for the
right to dissent has kept frustration below a boil," Masel wrote.
"Pushing free expression past the visual and acoustic horizon
seriously jeopardizes this social contract."

Masel said that he was prepared to sue if his permit application was
not approved in full.