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Jim Price
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Joined: 07 Dec 2002
Posts: 4817
Location: Altoona, PA
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 Posted: Saturday Apr 15, 2006 |
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(I received this article in an email; it's been posted to some discussion lists and blogs. Apparently being able to have music in the living room of your own house is now coming under fire!)
Subject: House Concerts are now a Federal case
Many of you are aware that my husband and I have been hosting house concerts for the last three years under the cloud of a cease and desist order from our local zoning authorities (O'Hara Township, Pennsylvania -- just north of Pittsburgh). The order threatens us with fines and prosecution for violating the Township zoning ordinance. We supposedly violated this ordinance simply by hosting house concerts in our living room. An appeal to the Zoning Hearing Board in April of 2003 created a legal finding that we must stop hosting those gatherings, as they were then constituted. Since the Township felt that our web site was "advertising" and articles in the paper about upcoming concerts were "publicity" we took down the website and declined to speak with the press, but continued to host gatherings. We also took care to make it clear that we did not sell tickets, and that friends who attended our gatherings were voluntarily chipping in for the music just as people often chip in for pizza and beer at a Steelers party.
Over the next three years we hosted another seven concerts with no further word from either neighbors or the Township. But in January [2006] a complaint from a neighbor that we were continuing to host these parties caused the Township to deliver a letter threatening to take us to court and fine us if we followed through on the four additional gatherings we had planned.
At the end of the Zoning Hearing Board review of our appeal of the cease and desist order in April of 2003, I read into the record a statement intended to make it clear that we viewed the cease and desist order as a potential violation of our right to free speech and association, and stating that if the ZHB chose to uphold it and enforce it, we intended to defend those rights. Since the Township has now warned of impending action against us, we've filed a complaint in Federal court alleging eight specific violations of our constitutional rights and requesting an injunction against the Township to prevent them from taking any action against us.
So the die is cast. And since this is a Federal lawsuit, if it goes to trial the precedent that is set will be relevant for all of you, hosts and performers alike. So I've got a little plan to generate some favorable and fun publicity that I'd like to put in place, and I'm hoping that you all will be willing to assist:
1. I've updated the web site that I used to use for information about house concerts with current status information to augment the terse statement about the cease and desist order that I left there when I took down the house concert information. The web site is at: http://tinyurl.com/ncv9t
2. Since they happened to be the lucky artists who were our first house concert after the latest action by the Township -- and since there's a possibility that their freedom of speech was also violated by the Township -- Jay Mankita and Kathy Moser have joined us as co-plaintiffs. The experience of performing while everyone was watching out the front window to see if the Township police were coming up the street to arrest me and break up the gathering inspired Kathy to compose a fun song called "Music In My Living Room." I've posted the words to the song and Kathy's recording on my web site. If you have contacts in radio I'd encourage you to make them aware of both this ongoing issue and the recording and encourage them to talk about it and play it on the air. Kathy graciously donated the rights to the song to my legal defense fund, so I am here specifically giving you permission to make as many CD copies of the song as necessary for this purpose. In addition, if those of you who are performers would like to tell the story as you travel and sing the song, I'd encourage you to do that. Let's just call it an exercise in consciousness-raising, shall we?
3. I've started a blog relating to this experience. The blog can be found at http://livingroommusic.blogspot.com/. Right now I'm just telling the story in "chapters," but blogs need a constant flow of interesting information if they are to be effective and I'm going hit the current end of the story in just a few more postings. So if you are a performer and you talk to audiences about these issues or sing Kathy's song or write one of your own, write to me about your experience. If you're a house concert host and you have related experiences or discussions about these issues with your guests, write to me about it. If you're a blogger and like to write about your experiences yourself, let me know so I can link to what you've written. If you spot any articles in any publication that's related to house concerts, let me know about them. If you are aware of other blogs related in any way to this subject, such as First Amendment rights, folk music, governments that overstep their appropriate authority, zoning issues, etc. let me know about them or point them yourself to my web page or blog. And so on and so forth -- basically I need a flow of information to get the process started. I'm hoping that once it gets going it will become self-sustaining, but I'll need some help to prime the pump. I'd also encourage all of you who host web sites to link to the blog, and if you take RSS feeds, you can subscribe to http://livingroommusic.blogspot.com/atom.xml and catch the story as it unfolds. All of those links and subscriptions will help the blog get noticed and hopefully generate some favorable publicity as well as new insights.
4. There have been a number of published articles about house concerts mentioned over the last several years. if those of you who mentioned them wouldn't mind sending me the links, that would be very helpful.
Once again my thanks to all of you for supporting the house concert scene and for cheering my husband and I on as we find ourselves suddenly compelled to defend rights to privacy, assembly and freedom of speech that most people would assume should never need defending. Who ever knew that music in one's own living room could be so subversive???
Cindy Harris
O'Hara Township (Pittsburgh), PA
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http://pamusician.net |
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Gorr
Active Member
Joined: 06 Nov 2005
Posts: 31
Location: altoona pa
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| Posted: Saturday Oct 14, 2006 |
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| Jim Price wrote: | (I received this article in an email; it's been posted to some discussion lists and blogs. Apparently being able to have music in the living room of your own house is now coming under fire!)
Subject: House Concerts are now a Federal case
Many of you are aware that my husband and I have been hosting house concerts for the last three years under the cloud of a cease and desist order from our local zoning authorities (O'Hara Township, Pennsylvania -- just north of Pittsburgh). The order threatens us with fines and prosecution for violating the Township zoning ordinance. We supposedly violated this ordinance simply by hosting house concerts in our living room. An appeal to the Zoning Hearing Board in April of 2003 created a legal finding that we must stop hosting those gatherings, as they were then constituted. Since the Township felt that our web site was "advertising" and articles in the paper about upcoming concerts were "publicity" we took down the website and declined to speak with the press, but continued to host gatherings. We also took care to make it clear that we did not sell tickets, and that friends who attended our gatherings were voluntarily chipping in for the music just as people often chip in for pizza and beer at a Steelers party.
Over the next three years we hosted another seven concerts with no further word from either neighbors or the Township. But in January [2006] a complaint from a neighbor that we were continuing to host these parties caused the Township to deliver a letter threatening to take us to court and fine us if we followed through on the four additional gatherings we had planned.
At the end of the Zoning Hearing Board review of our appeal of the cease and desist order in April of 2003, I read into the record a statement intended to make it clear that we viewed the cease and desist order as a potential violation of our right to free speech and association, and stating that if the ZHB chose to uphold it and enforce it, we intended to defend those rights. Since the Township has now warned of impending action against us, we've filed a complaint in Federal court alleging eight specific violations of our constitutional rights and requesting an injunction against the Township to prevent them from taking any action against us.
So the die is cast. And since this is a Federal lawsuit, if it goes to trial the precedent that is set will be relevant for all of you, hosts and performers alike. So I've got a little plan to generate some favorable and fun publicity that I'd like to put in place, and I'm hoping that you all will be willing to assist:
1. I've updated the web site that I used to use for information about house concerts with current status information to augment the terse statement about the cease and desist order that I left there when I took down the house concert information. The web site is at: http://tinyurl.com/ncv9t
2. Since they happened to be the lucky artists who were our first house concert after the latest action by the Township -- and since there's a possibility that their freedom of speech was also violated by the Township -- Jay Mankita and Kathy Moser have joined us as co-plaintiffs. The experience of performing while everyone was watching out the front window to see if the Township police were coming up the street to arrest me and break up the gathering inspired Kathy to compose a fun song called "Music In My Living Room." I've posted the words to the song and Kathy's recording on my web site. If you have contacts in radio I'd encourage you to make them aware of both this ongoing issue and the recording and encourage them to talk about it and play it on the air. Kathy graciously donated the rights to the song to my legal defense fund, so I am here specifically giving you permission to make as many CD copies of the song as necessary for this purpose. In addition, if those of you who are performers would like to tell the story as you travel and sing the song, I'd encourage you to do that. Let's just call it an exercise in consciousness-raising, shall we?
3. I've started a blog relating to this experience. The blog can be found at http://livingroommusic.blogspot.com/. Right now I'm just telling the story in "chapters," but blogs need a constant flow of interesting information if they are to be effective and I'm going hit the current end of the story in just a few more postings. So if you are a performer and you talk to audiences about these issues or sing Kathy's song or write one of your own, write to me about your experience. If you're a house concert host and you have related experiences or discussions about these issues with your guests, write to me about it. If you're a blogger and like to write about your experiences yourself, let me know so I can link to what you've written. If you spot any articles in any publication that's related to house concerts, let me know about them. If you are aware of other blogs related in any way to this subject, such as First Amendment rights, folk music, governments that overstep their appropriate authority, zoning issues, etc. let me know about them or point them yourself to my web page or blog. And so on and so forth -- basically I need a flow of information to get the process started. I'm hoping that once it gets going it will become self-sustaining, but I'll need some help to prime the pump. I'd also encourage all of you who host web sites to link to the blog, and if you take RSS feeds, you can subscribe to http://livingroommusic.blogspot.com/atom.xml and catch the story as it unfolds. All of those links and subscriptions will help the blog get noticed and hopefully generate some favorable publicity as well as new insights.
4. There have been a number of published articles about house concerts mentioned over the last several years. if those of you who mentioned them wouldn't mind sending me the links, that would be very helpful.
Once again my thanks to all of you for supporting the house concert scene and for cheering my husband and I on as we find ourselves suddenly compelled to defend rights to privacy, assembly and freedom of speech that most people would assume should never need defending. Who ever knew that music in one's own living room could be so subversive???
Cindy Harris
O'Hara Township (Pittsburgh), PA |
can we send a local rep from our area?
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e245/k-skell/scan0007-3.jpg
_________________
is it 4:20 yet? |
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