Speed cameras obscure another issue before the council
Speed camera legislation is the big item on today’s 2 p.m. council work session.
But that bill has all but masked another issue on the agenda — the re-introduction of a bill that will ban the delivery of unwanted fliers and circulars. That bill, sponsored by Councilman John Olszewski Sr., will also receive a hearing this afternoon.
The bill is identical to one filed by Olszewski earlier this year, before he amended it in an attempt to make it clear the law would not target small community newspapers.
That bill, passed June 30, was vetoed in early July at the request of Olszewski, after an amendment designed to exempt newspapers actually subjected some smaller community newspapers to the law.
In a July 31 memo to his colleagues, Olszewski said he sought an opinion from the county Office of Law.
“I do not intend to explicitly exempt either newspapers or campaign material from the bill’s definition. It is not necessary,” Olszewski wrote in the memo. “In fact, the decision to specifically refer to these items caused the problem with the final version of Bill 49-09.”
Olszewski said he did not use an amendment offered earlier this summer by the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association because “the effect of that amendment, intended or otherwise, would have been to permit a newspaper publisher to deliver unsolicited advertising circulars.”
Olszewski said he and the Office of Law believe the original language proposed in the bill earlier this summer are sufficient, and do not include newspapers nor campaign materials.
“Clearly, the defined term includes neither newspapers nor campaign material; only the most strained interpretation could produce such a result,” Olszewski wrote.” The Law Office agrees.”
Olszewski did make one small change to this version of the bill in an attempt to exempt small businesses such as “a teenager who has a lawn mowing business during the summer and wants to advertise his services at the beginning of the mowing season by distributing a circular to his neighbors.”
Olszewski’s bill is scheduled for a vote on Sept. 8.
You can read the full text of the memo below: