Dan, no offense, but your article has a glaring mistake.

>But on Tuesday the council did not go along with a >commission request that the city refrain from regulating >downtown performers at all for a trial period. The >commission wanted to let musicians play for change while >working under voluntary guidelines.

This is inaccurate, and in fact if that had been the recommendation of the commission, in all likelihood, voluntary guidelines would have been sanctioned. The commission would have been in consensus, there would have been no minority report, and there would have been no muddling city staff rebuttals.

In reality the downtown commission delivered a host of recommendations to the city council including rescinding the new ordinance, a city-resource draining demand for data collection about street performing by the police and city staff, monthly reports from the buskers, and language changes in the definition of display device and agressive solicitation.

The only thing the buskers really needed, was a continuation of the delay of the new ordinance and a chance to prove the effectiveness of the voluntary guidelines. Volunteers would have handled any complaints, and polled all stakeholder groups to prove the voluntary guidelines effectiveness. Under this approach, buskers (along with everyone else) would still have been regulated by the '94 ordinances; they would not, as you say, have been free from regulation.

I firmly believe it is because of the downtown commission's long list of additions, which divided the commission and caused city staff rebuttals, that the voluntary guideline approach was lost.

The one hour move-along is untenable, especially for political tablers because of the time it takes to set them up, and in fact the move-along was the primary concession made by buskers in exchange for a chance to prove the effectiveness of the voluntary guidelines. Writing that concession into law is not only a dirty deal on buskers, but makes absolutely no sense to apply it political tablers. I realize there are a zillion things that our council has on their plate, but it still doesn't excuse blockhead laws.