The North Coast Journal’s own Media Maven, Marcy Burstiner, recently took home the Redwood Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union’s 2014 Patriot Award for her support of free speech rights and open government.
Burstiner, who chairs the Humboldt State University Journalism Department and is the faculty advisor to the university’s newspaper, The Lumberjack, is a founding board member of the Humboldt Center for Constitutional Rights. She also regularly takes on First Amendment and government transparency issues in her monthly column for the Journal.
Greg Allen, who sits on the Redwood ACLU’s board, said Burstiner was a clear choice for the board. Pointing specifically to Burstiner’s March 27 column, “The Big Chill,” which took on the county’s protest ordinance and Arcata’s practice of deterring pro-marijuana gatherings in Redwood Park on April 20, Allen said Burstiner’s had a huge impact on the local community. He credited her column with helping push the board of supervisors to repeal the protest ordinance, and said her insight on Redwood Park’s 4/20 gatherings was profound, as she equated the gatherings to political speech protected by the First Amendment.
“Marcy was the first person to say it that way,” Allen said. “Christ, I’ve been heavily involved in the weed movement and the ACLU for years, and I’d never thought of it that way.”
For her part, Burstiner said the award is a recognition that people care about free speech rights and working to protect them. “What was nice wasn’t so much getting the award,” she said by e-mail. “The award made me realize how many people there were in Humboldt County who also felt that our First Amendment Rights are really important and that it is really important that we work to exercise and protect them.”
This article appears in Crime Fighters.
Kudos to Marcy Burstiner for pursuing transparency and open government. It is a shame that so many in local politics think nothing of violating the Brown Act while others try to manipulate the system by pretending to be of a different political persuasion than they really are and then when in office pushing the agenda of the interests that bankrolled their campaigns. The cynical trash that runs these hypocritical campaigns are anti democratic and need to be exposed and shown the light of day. Make your case out in the open and let the public decide, the “good old boy” back room dealing days need to be relegated to the past again.
If “one wonders,” Stephen, that one is you.
Uh, if you’re going to delete an offensive comment, could you also do the courtesy of deleting the response to it, so that I don’t look like I’m posting on the wrong thread?
Whoa….watch that ego fella!
If you used a pseudonym and limited your remarks to more meaningful comments we’d all be better off.
Congratulations Marcy…let’s hope a little recognition will rekindle some community journalism to answer a few glaring questions:
How many local families faced foreclosure last year?
How many since the 2008 collapse?
Who’s dominating local politics and why?
What is the eligible voter non-participation rate?
What is the home affordability rate?
How many local homes are owner-occupied?
How much public funding will be lost if the Housing Element fails?
Didn’t Bass ‘n Bohn run campaigns against a continuously failing HE?
How many poverty wage jobs can our rural economy support?
How are our leaders planning for the drought, now in its 9th year?
And on and on and on….