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I've been having major problems posting a response on this site.

Terrance (Terry) Stewart, MPA, City Manager
PO Box 150027
Cape Coral, Florida 33915-0027
Office (239) 574-0450 Fax (239) 574-0452
E-mail tstewart@capecoral.net

Cape Coral city council: council@capecoral.net

This is regarding the Cape Coral Tea Party that was cancelled:

First of all, in case it has not already been posted: the April 1 Cape Coral Tea Party is back on and is sponsored by a group named FreedomWorks. I encourage everyone who can to be there! http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/bstein80/cape-co...

So, the following may be somewhat of a moot point, but I will post what I know...

I have been in contact with both Lynn Rosko (the original Cape Coral Tea Party organizer) and the Cape Coral City Manager Terrance Stewart. I sent a protest email to Cape Coral officials, and I received a response from Mr. Stewart. I was subsequently involved in an email discussion between Ms. Rosko and Mr. Stewart. I have never met either party, and I will let these highlights speak for themselves. You can make your own judgements.

Ms. Rosko:
They are the ones that insisted there would be 500 or more people at this local gathering which would enable them to invoke all their rules which would have included indemnifying the City with $1 million dollars of insurance, cost of Police, Fire, EMS and cleanup fee and leaving me in an untenable liability situation and significant costs.

Mr. Stewart:
The City did not insist there would be greater than 500 attendees, we merely raised the concern because of our awareness that this type of event was garnering significant press and interest nationwide and believed that interest may draw more than 500. With that knowledge it would have been totally irresponsible to Ms. Rosko and to our community to let her proceed without informing her of that concern. We even offered to post a ranger at the park entrance to count heads and stop further entrants at 499. One must ask oneself why we would do this if we were attempting to stop the event. She says that she was left in an untenable liability situation with possible significant costs. Our rules did not create the liability situation, only the event itself would have done so. As to the cost for Police, Fire and EMS, those cost would be incurred and must be borne by someone.

Ms. Rosko:
This is not true! Mr. Pohlman was adamant that there would be 500 people, bringing into play all the rules and regulations in their attempt to stop the Tea Party of "local residents" to discuss local issues! I was told by Mr. Pohlman that he would have a Park Ranger there to count the people as they came into the park and if it was over 500, basically it would be shut down! It was not offered, it was stated as a fact.

I sent the following question to Mr. Stewart:
Was Ms. Rosko required to accept liability for everyone's actions if the group size was less than 500? To me that is the crux of the issue. Requiring that an individual accept responsibility for the actions of 499 other individuals (or be faced with paying for an insurance policy to avoid such personal liability for small crowds) seems unreasonable to me. If this was the case, I think the system is broken, because it would definitely have the effect of curtailing free speech rights. No one in their right mind would accept responsibility for other individuals, meaning that if they can't afford to pay for insurance, there is no protest -- even of 499 people.

I did not receive any further response from Mr. Stewart. You can judge for yourself what silence indicates.

I hope everyone within reasonable driving distance shows up, and they have a crowd of 5,000 -- not just 500!