This article in Sunday's News-Times makes the case so I don't have to.

Parades are supposed to be fun, a time to celebrate important events and honor those who came before us.

But over the past year, parades in the Danbury area have been surrounded by controversy and fraught with stress.

The city of Danbury is struggling to have a parade ordinance passed due to an impromptu parade of hundreds of Brazilians last June following a Brazilian win in the World Cup soccer competition that tied up traffic in downtown.

This entire situation is a classic case of the Boughton administration using immigration to pass something THEY want which has NOTHING TO DO WITH immigration or controlling impromptu parades such as the one we witnessed during the World Cup games.

Ask yourself this question:

"If it wasn't for the immigrant situation in regards to impromptu parades and a deep anti-immigrant resentment among a segment of our population, would Boughton's ordinance had a chance in becoming reality?"

If your answer is no, then you win the BIG PRIZE.

To put it simple, if it wasn't for the impromptu parades, this ordinance wouldn't make sense to anyone in Danbury and the Mayor and all those who supported this measure knew this from the beginning which is WHY YOU NEVER the mayor or the Republican elected-officials who support this ordinance mention to the public AT ANY TIME.

Take a look at this thing...it's page after page after page of nonsense that the Danbury NEVER needed in the history of the city. AGAIN, this whole thing was sold to the public as a response to the spontaneous celebrations BY IMMIGRANTS and was proposed with careful timing to the World Cup games. If fact, a first year law student WOULD TELL YOU that there is no way one can constitutionally control a celebration that's not planned because it's PROTECTED BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION. You government can not stop me from going out of my house after a win and run up or down the street. Breaking traffic laws is another matter (blocking traffic, car violations) BUT they can not stop me from celebrating....it's called freedom of speech.

The lawyers at corporation council aren't stupid; they knew they there wasn't any law they could draft to control spontaneous celebrations from the very beginning. It's the elected officials who knew that focusing on immigrants could be used as a smoke screen for this ordinance so they played that card for all it's worth and it's downright disgraceful.

Lets turn back the clock and witness the deceit.

From HatCityBLOG (dated June 28, 2006). Take a close look at the third point I raise in my list of complaints surrounding the ordinance.

Like I said, I was unable to get the other people who talked at the meeting but all had something to say about the permit requirement ordinance and centered their comments around noise the immigrants made during the world cup celebrations.

Now think about it.

1. The world cup games Mrs. Mitchell talked about was in 1994 which means this was a "problem" in 1998 as well as 2002. Why wasn't this issue addressed back then?

2. This permit requirement ordinance proposal came into existence two month before the start of the 2006 World Cup games. Since the proposal was sent to an ad-hoc committee, it would take some time before the proposal came to a vote because the council meets monthly. The World Cup games started in June while the proposal was in an ad-hoc committee. Coincidence?

3. Mayor Boughton issues a statement blasting the World Cup parades and mentions the permit requirement ordinance in Wednesday's News-Times article. Coincidence?

The whole proposal was a setup from the beginning and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. The moment I heard about this proposal, I said "great timing" and knew that this proposal centered around the parades which occur during the World Cup games. The parades were sure to create an outrage as the celebrations clog up Main Street and can bring traffic to a standstill. When the people start complaining, the people at City Hall can say "hey, we have this proposal in committee that will solve all the problems. Show your support, write letters to the editor, speak out on the subject at the next Common Council meeting and show your support, call into local radio and public access shows, yada, yada, yada."

Next thing you know, the powers that be can say, hey, this is what the people want and bang, the bill passes. Democrats would be put into a corner because they would be seen as weak on this issue and out of touch with the emotional response of the public. The Republicans would use this to their full advantage because they can turn around and say that the Democrats are giving us a hard time with this proposal.

Checkmate.

Now, if this ordinance was presented earlier (lets say last fall), people wouldn't give it a second thought. We live in a fast-food society and people forget things as soon as the 30 second sound bite is completed. Since the timing of the proposal was setup perfectly, people on the Common Council who are in support of the measure will have the anger of the "short attention span" public behind them (ah, I can see Pauline Basso holding up a News-Times article right now).

Remember, this is your local government at work and this is politics 101 at it's best.

Danbury News-Times editorial dated Nov. 28 2006 (after it was widely known that the proposed ordinance would not impact impromptu parades).

Parades are great fun, when properly organized. So are politically inspired marches. But no one should have the right to disrupt traffic and commerce on the spur of the moment with no consideration given to others.

Earlier this year, impromptu parades after World Cup soccer victories underscored the city's need for a parade ordinance.

Vehicles filled with people, with horns blaring, stopped traffic and created hazardous conditions for pedestrians, those in vehicles and even the police officers trying to maintain order.

The U.S. Constitution protects the rights of people to gather to express political and other opinions "" even opinions about the victory of a favorite sports team.

The purpose of the parade ordinance under consideration by the Danbury Common Council would be to bring order to the process "" not to stop parades.

[...]

Properly written and enforced, a parade ordinance will bring order to these events while preserving the constitutional rights of all.

Again, was their NO ORDER to the parades in Danbury before the "immigrant problem" occurred?

Again, this editorial was dated NOV 28 2006, well after it was known by those at City Hall that there was NO WAY ANYONE COULD CONTROL SPONTANEOUS PARADES yet this exactly the story that sold to the public (and The News-Times) in order to get support for this so-called ordinance.


If the origins of this ordinance stemmed from impromptu parades, and the ordinance won't have an effect of the very problem which gave rise to the creation of the ordinance, WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR THE ORDINANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Is this what the public really want?

Is this what the people expected when they gave their blind trust and support into the hands of the elected-officials who are attempting to ram this ordinance down our throats?

Why wasn't the public notified by those very same elected-officials who tried to ram this ordinance down our throats that the new law would in NO WAY impact those impromptu parades that had everyone up in arms?

I guess if Republicans can convince the public that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 in the run-up to war, they can use use their slight-of-hand and give the impression that this ordinance would solve the impromptu parade "problem" (a.k.a. using immigrants for their political gain).

FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WAKE UP FROM YOUR REPUBLICAN-INDUCED COMA DANBURY!

Even certain members of the public (a.k.a. Elise Marciano's anti-immigrant whack pack) who supported the ordinance showed their outright ignorance regarding the details of the proposal during May's Common Council meeting.

Here, watch them get up and speak again.

These people who spoke in support of the ordinance are backing the mayor's plan for one reason and one reason only...in their twisted mind, it would put the immigrant community in it's place...PERIOD. Their hatred towards ALL IMMIGRANTS has blinded their minds from the reality of the situation...that they're being used like a pawn on a chess board.

NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY LOCAL GOVERNMENT MEETINGS SHOULD ALL BE TELEVISED?

Thankfully,not everyone was fooled...here's at least two people who didn't drink Mayor Boughton's Kool-Aid.

From January's Danbury Democratic Town Committee meeting:

Look, I could go on forever but I have a pretty busy schedule today. Make no mistake about it, this ordinance was dishonest from day one and only came into existence by elected-officials using the immigrant situation for their own political needs.

SHAME on everyone who was fooled by this nonsense and SHAME on those who now know the truth don't come out and criticize those elected officials who bamboozled the public from the beginning.