Petitioners take over City College

Juan De Anda  | Staff Writer
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The sea of raging petitioners asking for signatures has finally ebbed, but like the tide, they have left their mark on the City College campus and will eventually return.

“They were all over the place at the beginning [of the semester] and they wouldn’t leave me or anyone else alone. I had to walk with my headphones on and sneak behind them and dodge them swiftly if they wanted to talk to me,” said Jared Hamlin, history major.

Now that they’re gone, students are left asking an array of questions concerning their motives and presence on campus. Why are they so perversely persistent and stubbornly tenacious in obtaining signatures? Why are they allowed on campus and who allows them to come on campus?

According  to Los Rios Community College District rules, which provides the guidelines for on-campus activities, outdoor areas are “open to the public generally, all persons or organizations may exercise their constitutionally protected rights of free expression, speech, assembly, and worship, and meet and distribute and sell noncommercial literature incidental to the exercise of these freedoms. Such activities shall be compatible with use and maintenance of the area and the free flow of persons and traffic, and shall not interfere with or disrupt the normal activities of the College/District property.”

“Anybody can come on [campus] and exercise their free speech rights and what we do is to try to facilitate that by helping them organize it,” says City College Director of Operations Greg Hayman. “But we do have fixed tables around that. If folks come to us, we can assign them to a table and keep things a little more spread out so that we don’t have two petitioners standing right next to each other trying to do the same thing.”
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While petitioners are allowed on campus, Hayman says that City College has rules for anyone looking to sell their goods on campus.

“We don’t allow vendors to come on campus and sell hotdogs, books, or things like that. They can sell things that are incidental to their activity – that could be a political campaign. And they’re not required to check in with us. Anyone can come onto Sac City campus and stand out there and talk to people and like I said, it’s an open campus as far as free speech goes.”

Free speech, however, is only part of the equation. Petitioners also get paid for every signature they gather.

“Of course there is some money involved. Nothing is free in the world. Sure I do it for political awareness but everything costs money,” says petitioner Edward James. “I need money to pay for gas to put in my car, I need money to pay the bills, I need money to pay for my Blackberry so I can talk to people. I need money or else I would be homeless.”

Although generating a healthy income is important, especially in these harsh economic times, some students disagree with the methods petitioners use to collect signatures.

“I understand that they are paid but I wish they didn’t prey on the ignorance of students. Petitioners should educate people on what they are promoting and present all the sides, not just the nice parts,” says psychology major Hilary Richardson.