Protesters test ban on signs

By ALEXANDER H. WILLIAMS
Staff Writer

MONTICELLO - People wore protest signs the size of pie shells, but nobody was arrested last night at a Monticello Village Board meeting.

Protesters tested a new ban on signs by wearing green buttons, holding the U.S. Constitution on signs the size of index cards and sporting T-shirts that said "Censorship" and "We Are Watching."

Two weeks ago, five people were arrested at a Village Board meeting and charged with disorderly conduct, a violation, after village authorities said they ignored a ban on protest signs and carried them into the Village Board meeting.

One of the arrested protesters, Thomas Rue, last night held up a book and opened it to face the Village Board. On large sheets of graph paper it read: "This is a Book..."

Village Manager James J. Malloy, who ordered the ban last week, summoned two police officers on guard to enforce the ban.

The police officers walked upastairs and asked Rue to put the book down. By this time Rue had flipped the pages to reveal a story about how he and his wife, Carmen Rue, who also was arrested last week, loved Monticello and democracy.

Malloy said the signs were banned because they were disruptive.

Last night, baout 20 people marched in front of Village Hall before the meeting. They carried signs that read: "Let Freedom Ring" and "Taxation Without Representation Is Tyrrany."

About 50 people attended the meeting.

Five minutes before the meeting started, protesters carried their signs to the front door where they confronted two village police officers -- Sergeant William VanHage and Frank Armstrong.

Glenn Pontier of Narrowsburg, who was arrested previously, heard VanHage tell him he couldn't bring the signs into the meeting. Pontier said it was his right, but VanHage said he had his orders and couldn't allow the signs.

"The Germans said, 'I have my orders,'" Pontier said to VanHage, referring to the Nazis during World War II.

Pontier put down his sign, gagged his mouth with a bandanna and walked inside.

Malloy said yesterday the same ban would be in effect for a Planning Board meeting tonight. Stericycle, a medical waste processing company that wants to locate a plant in Monticello, will appear before the Planning Board to discuss its plan for the plant that would be located off Sturgis Road.

Some of the protesters arrested two weeks ago were carrying signs in opposition to Stericycle.

Malloy also had the meeting videotaped last night in case the crowd became disruptive.

Last Tuesday, at the protesters' court appearance on disorderly conduct charges, Village Justice John Diuguid ordered a change of venue and turned the matter over to County Judge Anthony T. Kane, who will reassign it to another town or village court.



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