The matter of free speech can generate plenty of discussion.
That was certainly the case in Woodstock this week, but perhaps not in the way you might think.
The discussion was triggered by two signs screwed into posts on the edges of the Village Green. One post stands along the sidewalk bordering the Green and facing Tinker Street. The other is positioned across the sidewalk from the curb cut where pedestrians cross Rock City Road and Tinker Street.
That post is topped by a sign that reads, “Municipal Parking” and includes an arrow pointing up Rock City Road. The other bears a“No Standing Any Time” sign.
Below each of those official traffic signs, however, were additional signs that each read: “Attention. Free Speech Zone. First Amendment Rights In Effect.”
The white-and-red lettering and background appeared identical in size and font to the “No Standing Any Time” sign above them.
The area between the two “First Amendment” signs is occasionally occupied by protestors speaking out on a range of issues. Still, the appearance of the signs raised some immediate and fundamental questions.
Was the Town of Woodstock attempting to regulate speech protected by the First Amendment? Did the designation of a “Free Speech Zone” suggest that such rights were limited to that area alone?
“All public spaces are free speech zones,” said Rob Miraldi of Stone Ridge, professor emeritus of journalism at the State University of New York at New Paltz and an award-winning First Amendment columnist for the USA Today Network. “We don’t have to put a sign up to let people know that the First Amendment guarantees you can speak anywhere in a public place. That does not mean you could block someone’s driveway. That does not mean you could clog up the main street of Woodstock. But it does mean that on sidewalks and in spaces that are public you’re allowed to gather and demonstrate and squawk.”
So, who installed the signs?
Town officials said they had no idea.
Among those unaware of the signs were Town Supervisor Bill McKenna; Town Board member and incoming Supervisor Anula Courtis; and Town Board member Bennet Ratcliff.
Woodstock Superintendent of Highways Donald Allen said he noticed the signs while plowing snow during a recent storm but did not raise the issue with the Town Board or McKenna. Allen said the authority to install street signage rests solely with the Town Board, which directs his department to carry out its decisions.
“I don’t have any authority to put a sign up,” Allen said.
The signs struck some as especially odd in a town whose global identity is forever linked to the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair—the anti-establishment gathering that became a defining moment of the 1960s counterculture and an enduring symbol of unrestrained expression.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the signs were gone.
McKenna said he had first learned of the signs from The Overlook News earlier that day. He added that he had since heard from the head of the New York State Department of Transportation’s Region 8 office in Poughkeepsie.
McKenna said the signs had been attached to state-owned posts located within the DOT right-of-way for Route 212, which becomes Mill Hill Road and Tinker Street in Woodstock. He said the signs had either been removed or were in the process of being removed — the latter now confirmed.
Who installed them, however, remains a mystery.
But, McKenna said, “The whole town is open to free speech.”
John W. Barry is a reporter for The Overlook. Reach him at john@theoverlooknews.com.