MORGANTOWN — Monongalia County Commissioners Tom Bloom, Sean Sikora and Jeff Arnett, as well as Monongalia County Sheriff Perry Palmer, have been named as defendants in a lawsuit challenging the county’s Pedestrian and Vehicle Safety Ordinance.
The class action suit was filed Wednesday in United States District Court by nonprofit legal advocacy group Mountain State Justice on behalf of plaintiffs Chris Peterson, Becky Rodd “and others similarly situated.”
The suit claims the law – passed by the commission on Oct. 25, 2023 – violates the plaintiffs’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech “because it prohibits them and others like them from asking for donations or giving donations in public areas where those protected activities were common before its
passage.”
The Dominion Post reached out to Bloom, who said the commission has yet to receive notice.
“It would be improper to respond without seeing the information,” he said.
The lawsuit points to the origins of the law, which began in May 2023, when Bloom convened a meeting of county and municipal officials and law enforcement personnel to discuss the possibility of a countywide law addressing the growing issue of individuals using medians to ask motorists for money.
By late June it was clear that in order to pass muster constitutionally, any resulting law should avoid targeting specific activity or speech, and instead focus on where it’s being conducted.
The commission explained prior to passage that the law doesn’t outlaw panhandling or curtail speech, but prohibits anyone from doing anything while standing in the road.
Penalties include a warning for a first offense and a fine up to $100 for each subsequent offense.
“Regardless of the perception, or even the reality of how the ordinance was born, it’s completely morphed into something that doesn’t attack panhandling or outlaw panhandling,” Commissioner Jeff Arnett said at the time.
Opponents, including MSJ and ACLU West Virginia, said that regardless of marketing, the intent of the law was clear and the end result would be legal action.
The complaint alleges that in the year since the law’s passage, “it has only ever been used to threaten, harass, and prosecute individuals engaged in panhandling, an activity the United States Supreme Court, the federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, and a multitude of federal district courts have agreed is protected by the First Amendment.”
On April 22, Mountain State Justice sued the city of Morgantown regarding the city’s panhandling ordinance, ultimately prompting Morgantown City Council to repeal the law.
“As we feared, the county has used this ordinance as a tool to punish the most marginalized members of our community,” said staff attorney Lesley Nash, one of the lawyers representing the Plaintiffs. “Mountain State Justice is proud to work with and represent Chris and Becky as they defend their rights and ours.”
