Newport Beach plans to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that determined its ordinance regulating group homes is discriminatory.
And three armed soldiers standing in green fatigues on a corner watched quietly, doing nothing despite an emergency government ordinance banning groups of more than five from gathering.
The ordinance the groups are pushing bans officials on any level of government -- local, county, state or federal -- and even school board candidates, from soliciting contributions by phone or in person, on public property.
The defeat of the ordinance encouraged groups in other cities to attempt to overturn similar laws.
The same morning that lawmakers passed the new ordinances, a group of activists charged that the city had lagged in building homeless housing and publicly called on city leaders to turn the shuttered Parker Center, which served as the headquarters for the Los Angeles Police Department for more than five decades, into homeless housing.
Towns are permitted to have ordinances for groups wanting to protest or march, said Walter E. Dorroh Jr., the town counsel.
For example, a proposed constitutional amendment in Utah would allow anyone affiliated with a religious organization or church to avoid recognizing "any ordinance" that the group feels is against its religion -- which Rho said would let religious groups avoid following laws they think do not align with their beliefs.
But the Council, in one ordinance, accused the group of "causing confusion and discourse among the citizens" by harshly criticizing local officials at public meetings.
Yellowstone Recovery, which has had a presence in Costa Mesa dating to 1988, sued the city in November 2014 over an ordinance that regulates group homes.
Attorneys for the facilities argued that Newport's ordinance, which required group homes housing seven or more people obtain a permit to operate, was approved to make it nearly impossible to provide housing for recovering addicts.
