Parade Committee Clears Path for Peace Group Entry

After between the organizers of the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade and the Marin Peace and Justice Coalition, the two sides are close to an agreement that would allow the coalition to join the annual festive procession on May 30.

, the head of the I Love a Parade Committee that puts on the 19-year-old event, said the issue had become a distraction and the committee is reconsidering its prior decision to ban the group for its controversial banners and posters over the years.

“We’re willing to let him him in the parade if he keeps his word,” Lautzker said of Mill Valley resident and MPJC member Alan Barnett, the leading force behind the group’s interest in participating. “The committee saw me agonizing over this to the point where I had to ask, ‘do I want to be right or do I want to be effective?’ I’m much too right about this to be effective.”

Lautzker emphasized that the coalition hasn’t been admitted to the parade but has simply been allowed to submit an application, which it has. Lautzker said he would like some assurance that the banners and posters the group carries this year will be focused more on peace than politics. Lautzker said the group, which drew a stream of complaints last year for its banners calling for the U.S. to exit Iraq and Afghanistan, should keep its message on peace and not its pointed political differences with the U.S. and Israel.

“We haven’t necessarily given up our position about not wanting them to be offensive,” Lautzker said. “People are not coming out for a protest. They’re coming out to celebrate their children and the goodness that is Mill Valley. That’s not to say a political debate isn’t healthy – but this parade hasn’t been about that.”

The coalition’s application calls for banners and posters, and Barnett said the group has yet to decide their content. The centerpiece of the group’s entry will be “peace canopies,” essentially large umbrellas, which are made by Peace Novato, a group with which it has worked a number of times over the years, including for that group’s participation in the Novato Fourth of July Parade. The group hangs around 200 origami peace cranes off each canopy, each one bearing the name of someone who was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Barnett said expects the group to employ about a dozen canopies with approximately 35 people participating.

Barnett and Lautzker appear to have a fundamental disagreement on what the Memorial Day Parade should be about. To Barnett, any Memorial Day parade is inherently political as it hinges on the debate about America’s involvement in war. To Lautzker, Mill Valley’s version of the parade since its inception has been a celebration of the character of the town and its people. He points to this year's theme inspired by the .

The coalition has sought relief from the Mill Valley City Council, asking city officials to have the city take ownership of the parade. Such a move would circumvent a landmark 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found that “private citizens organizing a public demonstration may not be compelled by the government to include groups who impart a message that the organizers do not want to be included in their demonstration.”

The city’s position on the matter has been that the ruling prohibited it from forcing the parade committee to include the coalition, but Barnett and nearly two dozen coalition members and supports that it take ownership of the parade and allow anyone willing to submit an application to enter, regardless of its viewpoint.

That would be difficult for the city to do, city officials have said because of the extra staff time and resources organizing the parade would require. Barnett suggested the city could simply issue permits to each of the groups that wants to participate and a permit to the I Love a Parade Committee specifically to organize the event. That would allow everyone to enter without having to receive the approval of the committee.

“We appreciate the I Love A Parade Committee’s willingness to set aside our previous disagreement and giving us this chance to return to the parade in which we have participated for more than a decade,” the coalition said in a statement.