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MEMORANDUM TO: Sue Hall FROM: Jerome P. Gilligan DATE: August 2, 2004 RE: Proposed Non-Commercial Opinion Sign Ordinance Enclosed please find a proposed Non-Commercial Opinion Sign Ordinance for consideration by the City Council. This proposed ordinance is drafted to address constitutionality concerns related to the treatment of opinion signs in the City's current sign ordinance. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects a person's ability to express their views, but does not guarantee an absolute right to anyone to express their views at any place, at any time, and in any way they want. The well-established test for assessing the validity of time, place and manner restrictions requires that the restriction be content-neutral, be narrowly tailored to meet a significant governmental interest, and leave open ample alternative means of communication. Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 101 L.Ed.2d 420, 108 S.Ct. 2495 (1988). The First Amendment forbids government from regulating speech in ways that favor some points of view or ideas at the expense of others. Accordingly, Minnesota courts have consistently held that restrictions on speech must be content-neutral. Brayton v. City of New Brighton, 519 N.W.2d 243 (Minn. App.1994). In the Brayton case, the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that a New Brighton sign ordinance did not violate first amendment principles of free expression, despite a numerical limitation. The Court distinguished the New Brighton ordinance with a Minneapolis ordinance at issue in a case it decided four years earlier in which signs expressing opinions critical of the city government were completely prohibited. Goward v. City of Minneapolis, 456 N.W.2d 460 (Minn.App.1990). In the Goward case, the Court found that the Minneapolis ordinance placed a total ban on a particular category of speech, specifically, opinion signs, and therefore was content-based and unconstitutional. Id. at 465. In Brayton, the Court distinguished the New Brighton ordinance from the Minneapolis ordinance as the former did not totally ban anything, but rather, expressly allowed opinion signs subject only to certain reasonable restrictions. In summary, restrictions on opinion signs are a burden on speech and therefore must be content-neutral. Complete prohibitions on particular categories of speech, such as opinion signs, have been held to be content-based and thus unconstitutional. Conversely, reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on opinion signs have been upheld. In Chapter 1400 of the St. Anthony Village City Code, the Sign Ordinance, Section 1400.07 Prohibited Signs. provides that"[s]igns that are not specifically permitted in this DORSEY & WHITNEY LLP